Canada stops using 'avalanche dogs' for rescues in Rocky Mountains, stirring outrage

Scott Ward can still recall the relief he saw on parents' faces when a search and rescue dog he was working with found their children safe in Canada's vast and heavily wooded Banff National Park.

Another time, his canine partner led him hiking up a steep mountainside for two hours until they reached a man with a broken leg who was close to dying from hypothermia.

Now 73 and retired, Ward spent 17 years as a dog handler in the wilderness of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, work he described as gratifying.