Colin Suszynski/The Aspen Times
Aspen Snowmass’ new most-viewed video on their Instagram page just garnered over 3.5 million views as of Monday, March 24. Their other videos routinely get 50,000 to 100,000 views, which is nothing to turn your nose up at.
What was this viral video?
It was the debut of Aspen Highlands’ newest addition to their patrol team, Goose, a 12-week old puppy who will be training to become a patrol dog capable of helping in search-and-rescue operations in — and out — of the resort.
Aspen’s four mountains currently have 13 working patrol dogs with Goose. She will be the 14th once she is trained and certified by Colorado Rapid Avalanche Deployment, an agency charged with certifying and providing training for people, and dogs, to ensure Colorado has access to competent and fast avalanche rescue operations.
Aspen Skiing Company’s avalanche rescue dog program was started in the year 2000, though the region’s first avalanche dog worked the area as early as the 1980s.
Goose, and her handler, Eric Young, a patroller at Highlands, will be undergoing training ahead of practice scenarios conducted by both Aspen patrol, as well as C-RAD to ultimately assist search and rescue operations in-resort at Highlands and in the Aspen area.
“So first you do an obedience test, just to kind of prove that the dog is a good dog and can be up here around the skiing public, has good obedience and is not aggressive,” said Young. “From there, we move into the actual avalanche test.”
According to Young, that testing consists of searching large areas with two people buried in it. Prospective patrol dogs like Goose and their handlers have to search the entire area, confirm the locations of, and rescue the burial victims within 20 minutes.
Some search operations in-bounds are initiated to confirm the lack of a person in a slide, as opposed to explicitly going to find someone who was buried. According to Young, slides in Snowmass and Highlands in recent years have been worked by dog teams after being accidentally triggered during operating hours (despite the runs being closed). Patrollers and their dogs worked those slides to confirm that no one was buried in those slides who may not have been visible when the slide occurred.
Avalanche dogs at resorts often assist with search-and-rescue operations beyond the boundary as well. Goose and Eric can eventually be sent to assist nearby mountains with rescue operations. Recently, Aspen Patroller Jacob Rockwell was sent with Ruthie, a patrol dog at Aspen, to help out with search-and-rescue operations in Vail.
Currently, Goose is undergoing obedience training and beginning to do some exercises to prepare her for her search and rescue career.
“Somebody will hold her and I’ll get her all jazzed up on a toy and then I’ll run around the corner, out of sight,” Young said. “And we’ll just start trying to hammer in that search command and let her loose to see if she follows me around the corner.”
As Goose grows alongside her handler, she will become an incredible safety asset for Aspen Highlands and beyond.
“I would say that (safety) is our main purpose for being here,” Young said. “People love the dog, it’s a cool thing for kids and dog lovers, but from a patrol perspective, our main purpose is to be there to add that extra layer of safety.”
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