Meet the avalanche rescue dogs of Mount Bachelor | Oregon Field Guide

It's pretty interesting because you know when you're traveling around the mountain with the avalanche dogs people are always really excited and they're yelling like oh the avalanche dogs and you're trying to get their attention but the reality is they're here to do a job and when they're on the mountain they're working. They are here to rescue you if you were caught in an avalanche. While most avalanches happen in the backcountry they can happen on any mountain including here at Mount Bachelor and if that worst case scenario was to happen the avalanche dogs are the first responders. They're like just a member of our patrol. They show up with us in the morning, they get their uniform on just like us and they ride the chairlift up with us and they're here all day. It's a rough life. Even with daily efforts to mitigate potential avalanches around three percent of avalanche fatalities in the U.S. have involved guests skiing or snowboarding inside the boundaries of ski resorts. Today many of the major ski resorts in the U.S. have avalanche dog programs. Mount Bachelor started their program in the 1990s. We've got three aging dogs and and kind of one one new young pup so we're definitely at a transition point. We've brought Shasta on, she's a new pup. Riggins is almost 10. The two goldens Banyan and Mango they're eight and a half so we're going to be rebuilding the team over the next few years. It takes about two years to fully train an avalanche dog. The first year the focus is a lot on just basic obedience, learning to travel around the mountain, riding chairlifts, riding snowmobiles, getting used to the guests calling for them and teaching them not to you know run towards the guests and maybe get hit by their skis. The second year we really focus on the game of finding someone buried in the snow and it really is hide and seek for them. It's a game. It could take ski patrollers hours to locate someone buried in a field of avalanche debris. It can take a dog only seconds to pick up the scent. We're training them to find with their nose what they can't see on the surface. The speed at which a dog can locate a person buried in the snow and help to dig them out is a matter of life and death. If someone buried in an avalanche is found within 15 minutes they have a 90 percent chance of survival but if rescue takes more than 35 minutes the chances of survival drop to 30 percent. Super important for things to happen quick right so you got someone trapped in the snow they've got just minutes of maybe available oxygen. Dogs are a important tool for us to be able to find someone quick. But for the dogs in training today this is just a fun game. And when they do find that person they get to do their favorite thing which is play tug. You know if you don't sound like a crazy idiot you're not doing it right. That's like super high pitched praising the dog. One thing that's funny is people always are like oh I would have thought it would be a Saint Bernard you know and it's just that that that image of the Saint Bernard with the cask of brandy or whatever coming to rescue you. Using dogs for alpine rescue has a long and fascinating history dating all the way back to the 1600s. High in the Alps between Switzerland and Italy is the Saint Bernard Pass. It was here that monks raised dogs to help locate and save stranded travelers. Legends tell of the many alpine rescues these dogs performed. When skiing first came to the United States so too did mountain rescue dogs. This rare film shows Saint Bernard's training on Mount Hood in the 1930s. But it's not just Saint Bernard's that make great avalanche dogs. Generally avalanche dogs you want the dog to be the retriever that's really playful that's why golden retrievers, black labs, yellow labs work well. Shasta is the 16th dog to join Mount Bachelor's avalanche dog rescue program and today is a big day. Her first training drill she'll start by watching the older dog Banyan. What do you got there Banyan get him out of there get him out go on buddy go on get him out of there what do you got get him out of there get him out of there oh good boy did you find me good boy Now it's Shasta's turn. Shasta what's this gonna find you can come find me Shasta what's this huh what's this what's this. The first step is to get Shasta used to the idea of running into a snow cave to play without the digging part. That'll come later in her training. She's in a snow cave sniffing around and we've got a tug toy that she's holding on to and we're playing a little tug-of-war she's not scared at all this is exactly what we want to see. All right ready Riggs okay go Luna. As the puppy Shasta starts her first season Riggins is nearing the end of his career. His first day on the job he was a seven week old puppy he rode around in my jacket on the chairlift so yeah he's been here 11 seasons now. You know I have such a strong bond with Riggins we've spent so much time together. I know all dog owners have strong bond with their animals but I don't know it's just something different it's just at another level. My husband always gets mad and says the dog gets more kisses than he does. It's a little bittersweet you know when I see the gray on his beard you know he's getting older and he's about to turn 10 he's probably only going to be an avid dog up the mountain for another year or two max you know and it's sort of an end of an era for me. I remember being so young in the program and so gung-ho and wanting to train my dog and just wanting so badly to be a part of that program and now I'm kind of passing that on to the next generation. Good girl Shasta. You know watching Drew step into a new role then bring on his own avid dog and you know it's it's very heartwarming when you see that you know you know that it's okay it's time you know it's okay to move on. You know we spend all this time training these dogs years training them and the goal in the end is that he never has to be used to find someone buried in an avalanche. The goal is that he just continues to do drill after drill after drill and he retires having never had to be deployed to rescue someone. The whole point of the program is for that one time that we need him and we'll have him and we'll be able to deploy him with the goal of saving someone's life. It's the end of another long day at Mount Bachelor and after the lifts close the ski patrol and the avidogs have one last duty. Sweep the empty runs to make sure everyone has gone home safe. You know at the end of a long day getting a nice view of the mountains and being with your dog that's a good way to end it.