W W W. D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA NA . C O M
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e term "SAR dog" encapsulates a
whole world of specialties. Tracking dogs
follow a human scent along the ground.
ese dogs use articles of clothing with
the victim's scent on it to understand what
they're looking for. Air-scenting dogs
follow airborne human scent, and don't
always utilize a starting point like clothing
articles. ese are the dogs who locate vic-
tims buried under an avalanche, or cadaver
dogs searching on land or water.
To put it into numbers, humans have
about six million olfactory receptors.
Dogs can have up to 300 million. We
cannot fathom what it would be like to
possess such an extraordinary sense of
smell. Depending on the breed, dogs can have 10,000 to 100,000
times more acute sense of smell than us, which is how the SAR
dogs do their job, tracking what would be imperceptible scents
through the air, on undergrowth, and even over water.
SAR DOGS ACROSS MONTANA
While the Get Lost bumper sticker
might be cute, it really is easy to get lost
in Montana. e state is home to over
three million acres of wilderness, with
rugged mountains, dense forests, hun-
dreds of waterways, and countless oppor-
tunities to get turned around right out of
your backyard. Any time day or night the
call might come from a law enforcement
agency or the county SAR organization,
looking for help locating people with all
levels of backcountry experience. Calls
might come in for a missing backpacker,
a child who wandered out of the campsite
on a family trip, or victims of an over-
turned boat.
SAR teams throughout Montana are called out for land, water,
and snow rescue, resulting in up to 30 calls a year for True North
Search Dogs, and record visitation at ski resorts across the state cre-
SAM
HEIGH
Mike Bailly and K9
Yukon descending
from a helicopter
