Friday, February 08, 2008

Dog digs self out of avalanche, shows up days later

A black lab in Montana was swept down a mountain in an avalanche while skiing with her owner. The owner searched for two days with no sign of of the dog – haunted by the sight of the dog's eyes gazing up at him as she fell. The owner eventually gave up on the search and assumed the dog was gone. Four days later, the dog showed up alive and well. Read the story here.


This begs the question, should dogs wear avy beacons. Plenty of backcountry skiers take their dogs along. My first thought was, of course. But a few years ago I learned that avalanche dogs don't wear beacons because in the case of multiple burials, it would be a serious bummer to think you are digging up your friend and find you were digging up his schnauzer. I've heard that some people attach peeps, designed to find lost skis in powder, to a dog's collar. I feel like there must be a market out there for a dog specific transmitter.

2 comments:

the knitrider said...

That is amazing. I wonder if those implanted dog chips would be of any help.

Anonymous said...

Another aspect of dogs and beacons are the unburied dogs running around sending out signals.

Great happy ending.