See How This Avalanche Rescue Dog Is Enjoying Her Retirement | Short Film Showcase

[Music] This guy is an Australian Shepherd. We got her at eight weeks old with the purpose in mind of turning her into a search-and-rescue dog. A search-and-rescue dog, especially an avalanche rescue dog, is a dog that's trained to find human scent that comes out of the snow. So, when somebody gets buried in an avalanche, the dog is there to find that bit of scent that's coming out so that we can locate that person.

What she's doing is she's going through the area and looking for that scent. Then, when she comes across it, she sources it and lets you know about it. That's that sourcing and communication that is really the key difference between a search dog and just any other animal.

We got a call on Christmas Eve a couple of years ago that a Coast Guardsman had gone missing from Air Station Kodiak. They needed some dogs to come down and help, and we flew down on Christmas Day. We got down to Kodiak where the weather is always horrendous, but it happened to be a beautiful, beautiful day. We went up into the mountains, found our subject, and got him back to his family before Christmas was over.

It really is a 24/7 thing for she and I. We're out in the mountains a lot; it's part of who she is as well. Our job now is to keep her happy and healthy for the rest of her life. She's contributed her whole life, so we're gonna help her have a good time.

Nice to Earth's skies, a rock star, man! And she really is. She's got a lot of style; she likes it to be done with style, and she's just really a lot of fun. [Music]