Avalanche Rescue Dogs Memorial List:

[Hacksaw]

The board of trustees of the American Avalanche Association (A3) is pleased to announce that at its last board meeting it approved the creation of a new memorial list for avalanche rescue dogs.

Trained avalanche search and rescue dogs are as much a part of a ski patrol or search and rescue team, as their human counter parts. This will be a nation-wide list of dogs that have passed on. The dog does not have to have passed away in the line of duty. This list is intended to recognize the faithful service of the dogs and the time and effort their owner/handler have spent in training the dog. The memorial list will be placed on the A3 website where the human memorial list is currently kept.

Handlers of dogs that have passed on and organizations (i.e., ski patrols and search and rescue groups) should submit the following information about the dog that they would like to have listed: 1) the name of the dog, 2) breed, 3)date of death, 4) where the dog served, 5) association memberships and certifications (i.e., CARD, SRDOC, etc.), 6) the name(s) of owner/handler and 7) a photo of the dog (ideally dog and handler in the photo).

Please submit this information to Halsted Morris at the American Avalanche Association. BSFBSNOW@aol.com

[schindlerpiste]

I like it!

[splat]

How many people have actually been rescued by avalanche dogs?

[schindlerpiste]

Here is an informative article that does not actually answer your question, but is interesting nonetheless
http://www.1srg.org/Contributed-Mate...he%20promo.htm

[powdrhound]

"Avalanche Rescue Dogs..." excerpt.
by Sandy Bryson Avalanche Review, April, 1997
Kirkwood Ski Patrolman Dave Paradysz: "After noon January 4, 1995, another patrolman and I were out digging a snow pit for layer analysis in another part of the ski area. We had just gotten to the bottom of a 10-foot hole when the avalanche call came over the radio. We jetted over to the bottom of Chairlift 2 and rode that up. My dog Doc was at the station at the top of Chair 2. The avalanche was a few hundred yards from the station south of the top of Chair 2, well within bounds, in an area called Button Bowl south of the groomed trail leading to the bottom of Chair 3. Two snowboarders and a skier had been on the hill. The skier Jeff Eckland was the one caught. He is a groomer at Kirkwood Ski Area. He was on his day off.
"At the top of Chair 2, the patrolman I was with drove my dog and me up the ridge on the snowmobile. Meanwhile Dave Allessio was also working the station with his dog Woody. He was one of the first patrolmen to get the call and traversed into the slide path. He started searching the bottom part where most of the debris was.
"When we traversed into the slide, Doc was obviously feeding off my stress. He was pretty excited about the whole deal. It didn't take much to put him to work. It was fortunate. There was a big pile of snow in front of a stand of trees. We started right there and, boom, the dog hit it. Within 10 seconds, he was digging and found him.
"There was a patrolman named Louie with a hasty pack ahead of me skiing in. Before Louie could even get his pack off, Doc was digging and I was telling him to dig there. I clicked out of my skis and went over where the dog was. Between the trees Doc had uncovered this guy's back.
"I couldn't immediately tell how he was oriented, up or down. I was pretty much digging frantically. I thought I had his head, but it was his elbow. That clued me which way he was facing. So I dug to his face and was able to get him air. I could not see his face, but I was able to talk to him then. He was conscious. I asked him where he was hurt and if there was anyone else he knew of who was caught. He said his left side was hurting. It turned out he had a broken rib and bruised liver. I called for a sled with a backboard. Oxygen arrived with the other patrollers. We were able to put him on oxygen right away while uncovering him."
Dave Myers, ski patrol director: "The dog dug to Jeff by himself. Everything worked right. Fifteen minutes from the call to the find. We had two avalanche dogs located at the top of the hill. Everything that was done was appropriate and expedient."
"Apparently Jeff knew he was in the slide, tried swimming, tried to cover his face up, and it looked like just the position of his body might have aided in that. I think everything combined helped. It looked like he had been swept to the side of the avalanche into the trees. He was under about 3 feet of compacted snow. He was not able to move at all. They estimate he was found in 15 to 20 minutes, by 12:27. It took quite a few minutes to actually dig him out.
"As other patrolmen got the oxygen on him I was able to reward the dog. He had already grabbed a stick. He was pretty happy about the whole deal. He was the true definition of a hero--he had no clue what he had done. Happy as can be, same old Doc. Then we went back to work and helped clear the rest of the slide path to make sure there was nobody else. Probe lines got established."
Myers: "We had about 12 patrollers on the scene and about 30 volunteers."
Paradysz: "I worked Doc for about an hour. Pretty intense. The dog was beat. I brought him down to the bottom, got him some water, let him rest while I went back up and probed.
"Jeff was found approximately 100 feet below the crown, swept into some trees from above. We were guessing it ran 500-600 feet total. It was hard slab. I don't know if anyone did a fracture line profile afterwards. Jeff lost both skis, his pole and a glove in the slide. Originally we thought the slide might have been ridge deposition, but up there later we saw the sliding surface was pretty close to the ground. The crown was a 3-foot fracture. It had been shot the day before, the last time it snowed."
Jeff Eckland, after the rescue: "I knew I was going to be all right when I felt the dog on top of my head."

[powdrhound]

December 23, 1996, at 10 pm WOOF Search Dog Unit received a page requesting dogs to assist in the search for a missing snowboarder at Sugar Bowl Ski Area in California. Four dog teams responded. The ski patrol and a Placer County Sheriff's Deputy briefed the searchers.
At about 11 am that day, Joel Busath and a friend were snowboarding near a band of cliffs called "The Sisters." The two young men considered jumping off the 25- to 30-foot cliff. Joel had made the jump successfully the previous year and wanted to try it again. They hiked up the mountain, but the friend did not want to jump and left Joel at the top of the cliff. He did not see what Joel did next.
Later that morning someone found a snowboard and turned it in at the lodge.
Around 3 pm, Joel's friend, who could not find him, reported him missing.
Ski patrol had searched the area and discovered a depression in the snow at the base of the cliff. A set of footprints left the depression and led to a groomed run. The signs indicated that someone had jumped off the cliffs and walked to a groomed ski run below. Ski area dogs, ski patrolmen, and Tahoe Nordic skiers had done hasty searches in part of the ski area.
Displaying an aerial photograph at the briefing, the deputy assigned the dog teams to the base of the cliff band where they suspected Joel had jumped. He wanted a very fine, detailed search in a half-moon pattern downhill.
Groomers transported the dog teams up the mountain. It was a calm night. Several inches of snow had fallen during the day at this elevation. Led by patrolman Sean, the handlers skied across the steep slope to the base of the cliffs.
They formed a plan. The 2 most experienced avalanche dogs, Marie Sjoqvist with Shanto and Bob Macaulay with Quasar, would search the highest probability areas. Chris Salisbury with Nicholas and Lynn Macaulay with Zephyr would cover the other areas.
First, though, they decided to send each dog one at a time across the cliff band below the chutes. Bob directed Quasar to sniff closely at the base of the cliffs. When he reached the snow depression found earlier, the dog indicated briefly but left it without alerting. Marie's dog Shanto performed a similar sniff pattern, showing interest in the depression then leaving it.
It was Zephyr's turn. The excited Lab jumped around digging at Lynn's ski. She knew he was playing and directed him out to search. When she reached the area above the depression, Zephyr was 20 feet beyond her and 15 feet below the ski trail digging in an undisturbed area of the slope. She watched the dog dig, his body tense, his tail wagging differently, more rapidly. Zephyr backed up a step and barked. Looking up at Lynn, he barked again.
Skiing to the dog, Lynn saw a glove about a foot and a half down in the hole he had opened. Cautious, she said he had found a glove. As she pulled off her own glove to check further, Zephyr started digging again and produced a second glove, this one full of hand.
While the other handlers dug Joel's body out of several feet of snow, Lynn and the dog played with a bumper toy.

http://www.laketahoenews.net/2014/03...ce-life-death/

[powdrhound]

Avalanche Dogs Can Mean Difference Between Life, Death
ANG Newspapers, February 13, 1999

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE -- Veteran skier Dave McConnell hopes he'll never be buried by an avalanche. But if McConnell, director of the Heavenly Ski Patrol, ever suffers that misfortune, the first thing he's likely to see -- and feel -- when he emerges from the snow is the big, sloppy tongue of his Golden Retriever, Kiva.

"Dogs are great searchers because their smell is thousands of times stronger than humans'," said McConnell, who wears a rescue transceiver or beacon when he patrols. "If I were in a slide, I'd want them there looking for me."

The history of dogs working in the mountains is a long one. Monks have been using St. Bernards in the Alps for several centuries. In the Lake Tahoe area, however, they have only been used for about 15 years. McConnell estimates that nearly two dozen trained avalanche dogs are working at Tahoe ski and snowboard resorts. Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows each have approximately a half-dozen pooches who roam their respective slopes.

Disasters such as the one Feb. 6 at Donner Summit, where four sledders were buried in an avalanche and one died, reinforce the importance of finding victims quickly. "A dog can search a slide area in 30 minutes that would take a team of 10 good probers six to eight hours to cover," McConnell said. "A dog can mean the difference between life and death. I've seen Kiva find someone in a drill in three minutes or less."

Jeff Eckland, who drives a snow-grooming machine at the Kirkwood Ski Resort on weekends, knows how effective an avalanche dog can be. Six years ago, Eckland was caught by an avalanche in Kirkwood's Button Bowl, smashed into a tree and suffered a broken back and ribs. He was buried for nearly 15 minutes under 5 feet of heavy, wet snow before he was dug out by a Golden Retriever named Doc.
"I owe my life to that dog because I was folded up backwards by that slide and couldn't move a finger," said Eckland, a Modesto resident. "I'm one of three people in the United States who has been saved by an avalanche dog. That's why I have a tattoo of Doc on the left side of my chest. I was buried way down there against a tree and was close to blacking out when I felt his paw hit my back. Because I worked at the resort, I knew it was him. "Without Doc, it probably would have been several hours before they found me. I'm pretty sure I would have died. That dog is the greatest."

Doc, owned by Kirkwood ski patroller Dave Paradysz, was traversing into the avalanche area in Button Bowl when he went straight to the clump of trees where Eckland was buried. "Just before he found Jeff, his tail was spinning like a propeller," said Paradysz, 36. "I could tell that Doc was really adrenalized. He got a lot of hugs and pats all around. Later on, Jeff threw a party for him."

According to Paradysz, searching for people buried by snow slides is a big game for avalanche dogs. "Doc's 11 years old now and getting up there in dog age," said Paradysz, who oversees the training of four avalanche dogs at Kirkwood. "But he still loves to get up on the hill and play. He's pretty much retired, but he still thinks the drills are a real kick."

Paradysz, a professional ski patroller for more than 15 years, said he became a dog handler after a roommate gave him a Golden Retriever puppy in 1987. "I figured I should do something with him and get him some obedience training," he said. "It just made sense with my job that he become an avalanche rescue dog, too."

Since then, Doc's training has never stopped. It started when Doc was 11 weeks old, and by 11 months he was ready to work. In addition to saving Jeff, he also has helped find lost hikers, hunters and Alzheimer's patients. During the past decade, he has sired two litters, and now some of his offspring are working at Heavenly.

Paradysz said he started Doc's training by simply hiding behind a tree and having Doc search him out. "Over time, we worked up to finding four people buried under six feet of snow with a lot of distractions going on at a mock rescue scene," he said. "But these dogs are hunters, and they can find the scent rising up from the avalanche debris. I know if I'm ever caught by a slide, I want a dog there fast."

McConnell said a trained avalanche dog, like 75-pound, red-coated Kiva, is one of the best insurance policies for a ski resort with steep terrain. "If we are doing our jobs well and knocking down snow before it can build up and slide down on a skier, then we shouldn't really need these dogs," McConnell said. "But if something should go wrong, or someone goes under a rope and triggers a slide ... "

If a skier or snowboarder is buried in an avalanche, McConnell said the chances of surviving much longer than 30 minutes are poor. "If you can get a dog there and find the victim quickly, you may recover a live person instead of a body," he said.

Golden Retrievers like Kiva -- who started riding the chairlift at seven weeks old -- are great ambassadors for any ski area, McConnell said. People often stop and smile when Kiva bounds over hard-packed snow or surges and "porpoises" through light powder. Children especially seem to love him and the five other avalanche dogs at Heavenly. "I just wish every employee at this resort had a great attitude like Kiva," McConnell said. "He never really has a down day. In fact, he gets bummed when we don't come to work."