Avalanche Dogs

Behind the Scenes An Insight Into a LandSAR Avalanche Search Dog Team

By Mike Lundin

Two years ago I was standing at the top of Cardrona Ski Area when I got a phone call from the Queenstown Police asking if I was available to go on standby for a possible avalanche involvement. I remember this call as if it were yesterday, because it's the closest I've ever come to having a panic attack. After two years of training I was being asked to put the skills Stellar, my dog, and I had been practicing up to that point into action and it scared me.

Even though we were stood-down reasonably soon after the initial call that feeling has never left me. Dog handlers, as well as their dogs, have a responsibility to the wider backcountry community to help whenever asked. The longer you spend in the mountains for work and play the more people you know who have had close calls, accidents and, from time to time, there are unfortunately those who don’t make it home. The search and rescue hounds and handlers of New Zealand are another level of defence that may just help get someone back to their family and friends.

Avalanche search dog teams across New Zealand dedicate huge amounts of time training and helping each other to train. The journey of getting a pup trained up and gaining operational status is massive but maintaining that standard and being “fighting fit” when you are needed most is almost more difficult.

Stellar and I have been an avalanche search operational team for three years and, until recently, we've made steady progress at all of our assessments and training camps. This enjoyable and rewarding success allowed some complacency to creep in and eventually set us up for a fall at the dog training camp at Ohau this past June.

I have seen many great handlers and their dogs have bad days and I myself have now experienced that same thing for myself. What exactly went wrong? I'm not sure, but we've been in a rebuilding phase for the last month or so and have slowly returned to our previous form.

The rebuilding process took us back to square one of the training pathway. We worked on simple obedience and search exercises that did not require a huge amount of effort from Stellar. These sessions finished with some energetic play/reward. This process was used to re energize Stellar and a reminder that her job is a lot of fun before slowly increasing the duration and complexity of the searches.

This process has taught me the importance of taking a step backwards from time to time in order to move forward (very cliche I know). It has also made me realise how much dog handlers have invested in the process and it is so much more than just time and gas money. I can admit that complacency got the better of me as I relied the lack of consistency over the summer months took a toll on our small team. The reason we performed well in the first couple of seasons was due to a huge amount of on-snow training time and the massive amount of help we were given along the way from some key people. I left the Ohau assessment camp feeling overwhelmed about where Stellar and I were at, and wondering how I was going to get us back to a place where I felt confident in our abilities as a team. It took a few weeks of dedicated and targeted work but Stellar and I are reading each other and the search sites successfully once again. However, the credit sits squarely on the shoulders of a much broader group of people: work colleagues, other dog handlers, LandSAR Search Dog examiners and multiple friends have all stepped up by volunteering their time to help scent clothing articles, help I would like to think that we won't be in this somewhat compromised position again but just like humans, our fourlegged workmates can have “off days” from time to time. It is our job as dog handlers to recognise when this may be happening and figure out what contributed to its occurrence.

Stellar is a great dog. I love the fact that she gets to come to work with me everyday but ever since I received that first phone call deploying us to an avalanche site, I have also appreciated the weight of responsibility associated with being part of a search and rescue team. Our recent “blip” in training has reinforced this responsibility.

I would like to thank New Zealand Landsar Search Dogs the team at Cardrona Alpine Resort for lifting Stellar and I back up to a place where I know we can be of service once again.

heavily on Stellar and my past successes. I now realise that

wider search dog community and the amazing Ski Patrol bury those clothing articles, stomp search sites, take video