(upbeat music) - Wasatch Backcountry Rescue trains elite search and rescue dogs to respond to avalanches and emergencies in Utah's Wasatch mountains.

Our guest today, President Marguerite Van Komen, is here with more information.

Hi Marguerite.

- Hello.

- And you're also here with Frankie - Frank the Tank.

Yep.

- A rescue dog.

Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

- So tell me how it works.

It's all volunteer.

- It is.

It is.

So we are all ski patrolmen at the Big 10 ski resorts across the Wasatch front.

And then when an accident happens in the back country, we're deputized and work under our respective county sheriffs and take our dogs and our members into the back country and rescue our community.

- That is so great.

You do it, and all volunteer.

And tell me about the dogs.

Frankie belongs to Snowbird.

- That's correct, yeah.

- [Mary] So, how does all that work?

- Well, WBR is the governing body.

We're the ones that regulate all the training and testing through the state of Utah.

So Frankie will grow up as a little resort ambassador at Snowbird and then goes through all the trainings with Wasatch Backcountry Rescue, and then within usually a year and a half to two years, he's out and working in the backcountry as well.

- So you hold school for them and actually train them?

- We do.

We do.

We are gonna be hosting our international school up at Alta, at the Alta Peruvian Lodge again.

It's the oldest avalanche dog school in the nation and was one of the first.

And it's great.

We invite people from all over to come and train with us in the iconic little Cottonwood Canyon, the most avalanche-prone canyon in North America.

And usually it snows like crazy while we're there.

So we're watching other people ski, but we're training our dogs and having a good old time.

- That's wonderful.

Wonderful.

It's so great that you do this and that you train them, and I just appreciate what you do and thanks for being here.

- Well, thank you for having us.

- And if you'd like to know more about Wasatch Backcountry Rescue, go to wbrescue.org.

That's wbrescue.org.

Find out how you might get involved and have a dog that saves folks.

I'm Mary Dickson.

Thanks for watching "Contact."

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