Which human odor cues do avalanche search dogs perceive?

Since the early 1960s, dogs have been trained for supporting mountain rescue teams in recovering climbers buried in av- alanches. Over the years, what had started as a little more than an amatorial activity has become an increasingly important resource so that, nowadays, the use of handler-dog units has become essential for finding missing people lost on surface, avalanche, or under rubble. Despite decades of experience and passion dedicated by search dog handlers in training their dogs, there are still several problems that negatively affect their effectiveness in pinpoint a disperse victim. In particular, it is still not clear how scent trails are perceived and used by dogs for searching human beings. In fact, contrary to what occurs in drugs and explosives search, human odor cues are very different and not easily identifiable or standardizable. A collaborative project has been undertaken with the ultimate goal of identifying the classes of chemical compounds emitted by an avalanche buried person and how some psy- chophysical parameters, such as hypoxia, hypothermia, fa- tigue, stress, panic, injuries, and death, might influence them. A deeper knowledge in this area would be essential for further exploring the ability of perception of avalanche search dogs of these odors and for investigating how this is affected by the environmental conditions in which they usually operate.