As soon as Echo exits the ski lift, he starts making a fuss. The harnessed black, white, and brown border collie attracts families vacationing on the slopes of Mt. Ruapehu’s Whakapapa skifield like a magnet.
The two-year-old search and rescue canine was trained to locate potential avalanche victims. “Education is a really big part of what I see us doing as avalanche dog teams.” She said it’s surprising how little people realize how dangerous avalanches can be.
“Where there’s snow and there’s slopes, loading, and stability issues, there are avalanches.” Country Life saw as Lisa put Echo through his paces while training him to locate an old shoe hidden in the snow.
Dogs have a remarkable sense of smell, Lisa said, “220 million scent receptors compared to our five million. They smell the world in 3D.” Rescue dogs for avalanches have been reported to find victims buried many meters below the surface and can detect a victim from half a kilometer away.
The statistics on rescue dogs’ success in an avalanche are astounding, she remarked. If no other acute trauma exists, a person has a 90% probability of surviving up to 15 minutes after being buried.
In comparison to 20 humans searching the same area in four hours, a dog can search a hectare in 30 minutes and determine whether somebody is hidden beneath the snow. “Time is totally against you.
She referred to the electronic device that sends a signal for searchers to pick up, a need for those venturing into the backcountry, and stated, “A dog is the superior way to be found should you not be wearing a transceiver.”
For Echo, the search is “just a big giant game,” Lisa remarked. He is ready, and Lisa’s hand is gently resting on his strap.
“Ready to work?” she murmurs.
“Ready … search!”
With his nose in the air, Echo zigzags across the snow.
He locates where the shoe had been buried 20 centimeters below the surface by following the airborne human scent, at which point he begins to dig frantically.
Lisa races over shovel in hand and helps to dig it out. After the shoe was found, there is a flurry of praise and a rowdy tug-of-war over a toy.
With Land Search and Rescue, the volunteer organization that serves as New Zealand’s official search dog organization, Echo is currently in his first full season as an avalanche rescue dog.
“We’re really training for a situation we hope will never happen,” she said. “He’s this amazing teammate that makes me smile every day.”
