Dog + Snow
This question came up a few times during the recent “Snow-Be” (avy beacon with no search mode) discussion. I thought I’d write here and make sure that the answer to this topic was clear for all.
Q: When should you put an Avalanche Beacon on a dog?
A: Never
If your dog is wearing a normal avalanche beacon and the dog and other humans are buried in an avalanche together, you may end up finding the dog before finding the other humans. In this situation, you may end up saving the dog but not being in time to save a fellow human. This is not okay. Of course, no one wants a dog to die, but you’d feel pretty terrible if you saved your mom’s dog, but not your mom.
Pieps Dog Avalanche Beacon
The Exception to the Rule:
- Some companies do make dog specific avalanche beacons that transmit at a different frequency (456 kHz for dogs vs 457 kHz for humans)
- The different frequency ensures that your dog’s avalanche beacon will not interfere with your human searches
- Pieps sells a dog specific avalanche beacon and allows their DPS and Vector avalanche beacons to search for the dog beacon on the dog frequency
In conclusion: Don’t ever put an avalanche beacon on your dog…unless you have a dog specific avalanche beacon that won’t interfere with a search for humans.
Doggers everywhere just groaned in pain. Miles you clearly hate dogs!
and you clearly hate humans
Dogs are usually more likable.
Honestly without a doubt I would save a human first. Thank you Miles for showing me this I’ve let my dog wear just a standard beacon, I will defiantly pick this up.
Good post.
I did a brief interview during the 2011 SIA with Liberty Mountain – Pieps.
Here is the video showing some of the technology from last year, including the dog specific beacon.
https://vimeo.com/22791113
I want to say that dogs are less likely to get caught in avalanches than humans. This is anecdotal of course, based purely on a number of avalanche videos I’ve seen where dogs were involved. I could be entirely wrong of course. Anybody have any info on this point?
some guy’s dog survived an avalanche and walked a couple days out of woods back home this season i think…
the dogs owner died. the corgi was buried for 3 days, and then walked back to the hotel room door where the owners were staying. apparently the people who evacuated the deceased had been walking over where the dog was buried about 3-5 feet down.
Another point is that if the dog *isn’t* caught in the avalanche, but is wearing a beacon, the dog’s not going to be able to put the beacon into search mode by itself. You don’t really want to add that to your list of things to do when starting a rescue.
Great to know that there are specific dog avalanche beacons out there, a much better alternative.
But how will I find my monogram Coach purse if fluffy isn’t transmitting from inside it?!!