Telluride Avalanche Dogs

The dog program in Telluride started in 1986. First dog was a Lady Jane Daiquiri Wattenpause Yellow Lab. She put in 14 years. They've taught me a lot. You know the first dog was kind of an experiment. The dog was better than I was. Jane helped me focus and throughout the 30 years we've been doing this now they they've taught me that no matter what challenge you're facing if you work together you can you can work through it and we've been up against some impossible challenges, rescue scenarios and avalanches and you just have to trust the dog and the dog will show you the way. We have six dogs, six handlers. We added two puppies this year. This is Swee. She's six months. She's a Yellow Lab and she's the youngest member of the Telluride Avalanche Dogs. This is Misty. She's my nine-month-old golden retriever and it's her first year on the Telluride Ski Patrol. This is Pica, Dynomax, Welter. Avalanche dog in training. She's two years old. This is Gretchen. She's four years old. This is actually her fifth season working with the Telluride Avalanche Dogs. This is Stella. She's a eight and a half year old female border collie avalanche rescue dog here at Telluride Ski Area. This is Mona. She's one of our Telluride Avalanche Dogs. She's an 11 year old. Kind of our senior dog here on the mountain. The queen bee. When you're the new dog you're going to be introduced to all the characters on the team and there's always the the grandma or the granddad who's running the program for the dogs, right? That's their boss is the oldest most senior dog. For the young pups just being around these dogs it all rubs off. It takes about three years to get a dog fully certified. Since this is her first year she's really just getting familiarized with being around on the ski area. Riding snowmobiles, riding chairlifts, riding on my back as I ski. Some basic dog drills, obedience, being around other skiers and what it's like to be an abbey dog up here at the top of the world. The way that we train them is with the tug reward. The patroller that's buried in the hole is buried with the tug toy. When Gretchen indicates and digs and excavates the person the reward is there in the form of tug of war. It's one of her favorite games to play. These dogs heart rates increase to over 200 beats per minute when they're working. Sometimes it's embarrassing they make so much noise. That's how we feel on a powder day when we go yahoo. These dogs are whining and squealing and getting ready to go to work. She's already found him which that's what you want but in terms of building their drive more and more you want them in there just engaging with her toy so that it has nothing to do with me and my praise. It's all about what's going on in there and him getting her excited with her toy in there. Once she gets a good session of playing and before she tires out I go and grab her and that'll be the end of it. You keep it short and simple with the new dogs. You never want them to have a failure in the beginning. You want it all positive and you want it all to be successful. The dog is really your fastest option for being found. She can cover so much more ground than we can. When I send this dog out she'll run 100, 200 yards upslope without checking back in on me and she's really just trying to find that scent cone the scent that's rising from the snow percolating up through the snow pack and pinpointing just like how we would with a beacon exactly where that scent is rising from. When she's working at peak performance I'm the one that looks like I don't know what I'm doing. You know my goggles are fogged up and I'm way downhill over trying to put my skins on. The dogs just think it's a big game and they want to win the game. When a dog gets accepted to the Tire Ride Ski Patrol everything they do is paid for. So we started tirerideavalanchedogs.org. It was a way to raise money for vet costs, the food costs, and that's what the program's all about. The support from the community has been outstanding. The support from the ski company has been great. We have people from all over the country that help us pay the bills for TAD. Yeah, good girl. Good girl. Yeah, man's best friend. The perfect animal. The only thing I don't like is that their lifespans are limited. You're lucky if you can get 13 or 14 years out of a dog and I just like to think that that's why their tails are always wagging because they know that their life isn't that long so they're going to be happy for all the years that you're going to share with them.