We had our first session of training with the CSAR group on training avalanche dogs. Dogs that are trained in Avalanche Resuces can easily pick up the human scent (since the naked eye can't see the covered person). An avalanche dog is trained to track a wide area of snow-covered space in a rapid zig zag pattern. When the dog locates a scent they sound an alarm and start to dig down.

The first session the handlers were buried in a shallow grave under the snow - the training takes many weeks. Teamwork is essential between the handler and the dog.

We were pretty excited with Lola's progress - for a little dog we still feel like she can cover a good amount of ground (She is a Jack Russell after all!).