Dog handler stays the distance

It has been 13 years since Arrowtown resident Brent MacDonald first decided to have a go at becoming a LandSAR avalanche dog handler - and he has not looked back. Mr MacDonald, The Remarkables Ski Area maintenance manager, came from a farming background and when he started at the ski area, he met a colleague with an avalanche dog.

Soon after, he got a black Labrador puppy and began training it, but hip dysplasia set in when the dog was 4 years old.

Then came Ella, a now 9-year-old black Labrador, who first qualified as an operational avalanche dog when she was just over a year old, and has remained operational ever since.

"I put into her what I'd learned from the first dog. The first one was strictly avalanche [searching]. Ella is wilderness tracking and [operational] avalanche."

While wilderness tracking dogs search for tracks and air-scent dogs follow scent on the wind, avalanche dogs are searching for a "cone" of scent buried deep in the snow.

The training involves associating a toy with human scent, so when an avalanche occurs, the dog - thinking it is a game - tries to find the human.

And when it does, it gets its toy.
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