Dog Found Alive Four Days After Montana Avalanche

BILLINGS, Mont.) — A dog that was feared dead after it was swept away in a weekend avalanche that killed its owner showed up four days later at the Montana motel where its owners had stayed the night before going backcountry skiing.

Search and rescue team member Bill Whittle said he was “positive” that the Welsh corgi — named Ole — had been buried in Saturday’s avalanche.

In this photo released by Natasha Baydakova on Wednesday Jan. 4,2011 showing a Welsh corgi dog named Ole that showed up at a Cooke City motel four days after the dog and its owner were swept up in an avalanche. The dog’s owner died. The dog returned to this motel where they had been staying before going back country skiing

“The avalanche guys were up there on Monday investigating and they were looking for the dog too and never seen any signs,” he said.

But on Wednesday, Ole showed up exhausted and hungry back at the motel, four miles from where the slide occurred, the Billings Gazette reported.

“When I first saw the dog, it was sitting in front of their room staring at the door,” Cooke City Alpine Motel owner Robert Weinstein said in an email to The Associated Press on Thursday.

Dave Gaillard of Bozeman was skiing with his wife when the avalanche struck near Cooke City, an old mining town just outside Yellowstone National Park.

“His last words to me were, ‘Retreat to the trees.’ I think he saw what was coming from above, that I did not see,” Kerry Corcoran Gaillard told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.

Gaillard’s daughter, 11-year-old Marguerite, was putting photos of Ole on poster board as a memorial Wednesday afternoon.

“She found out when she was halfway done with that that Ole was still alive,” said Gaillard’s step-daughter, Silver Brelsford.

Whittle drove the dog back to the family in Bozeman.

“He was tired,” Brelsford told the AP. “He’s doing really well now.”

Sidney resident Jody Ray Verhasselt, 46, also died Saturday in another avalanche while snowmobiling north of Cooke City. The two New Year’s Eve avalanche deaths have taken a toll on the small mountain community.

“We needed this,” Whittle said of Ole’s survival. “It kind of cheered everyone up.”

Searchers recovered Gaillard’s body earlier this week. Family members were preparing for his funeral on Friday.

Adapted from TIME

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The World’s Most-Visited Museums

Mais oui! The Louvre in Paris tops the list of the busiest museums on Earth.

It’s no surprise that the Louvre has yet again claimed the title of the world’s most-visited museum—it’s only the home of the world’s most popular woman: Mona Lisa.

The Paris museum drew a record 8.8 million visitors in 2011—a five percent increase from the three years previous, during which the museum hosted 8.5 million people every year. The New York Daily News reports the Louvre citing a “strong return of American visits and a more and more marked presence of visitors from emerging countries.” French heritage officials have reported that the number of visitors French museums at large have also grown by more than 5% in the last year. Maybe this jump is an indication that the recession is indeed “over” (at least that’s what economists keep telling us), or perhaps people are seeking out art as an escape from the realities of daily life.

According to Travel + Leisure’s methodology, more than half of the 20 most-visited museums (based on 2010 data) were based in Paris, Washington D.C., or New York City. The Smithsonian museums get a lot of love on the list: after the Louvre, T+L cites the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in D.C. as the second most popular, with 8.3 million visitors in 2010, while the National Museum of Natural History in D.C. drew in 6.8 million people, taking the No.3 spot. The Smithsonian museums gain advantage from 1) being free, and 2) their convenient location, side-by-side along the National Mall, making it easy for visitors to museum-hop for a day.

The other usual suspects also made the list—the British Museum, the Met, the Musée d’Orsay, but only one Asian museum, the National Museum of Korea in Seoul, made the list. T+L explains that museum benefits from strong domestic tourism.

Adapted from TIME

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5 Things Your Doctor Dislikes About You

Ask anyone what's wrong with the medical profession and you'll hear a long list of complaints: Too many pricey medications. Forever behind schedule. Always talks, never listens. Rushes me in and out of the examining room.

Don't get on your doctor's bad patient list

But people rarely hear what bugs doctors about patients. Their gripes are generally aired as doctors walk the hallways at medical meetings or chat behind closed doors at conferences. Here's your chance to find out what annoys your doctor.

1. You don't arrive on time 

"It drives [some] doctors crazy when patients turn up late for an appointment," says Mary Catherine Beach, M.D., of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. "You can see the irony in that because patients almost always have to wait to see their doctor." But quite often the reason you're left twiddling your thumbs is that someone who didn't arrive on time messed up the schedule. "If you come in late, I can almost guarantee that your doctor won't feel as happy toward you as if you'd been on time," she continues. Some doctors tolerate late arrivals better than others, but no one likes it. 

Here's a tip: Ask for the first appointment of the day, so you won't get caught up in other things before the appointment. This also works in the reverse - for doctors who always make you wait.

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2. You treat your doctor's office as your personal assistant 

"Some patients want you to take responsibility for running their lives," says Dennis Cope, M.D., of the UCLA Department of Medicine. "I saw a woman recently who had to make arrangements to get to another medical appointment. She decided transportation was a medical problem and asked the staff to organize it. That's inappropriate." 

People who expected his assistant to run down and put money in the parking meter irked retired dentist Richard Price, former clinical instructor at the Boston University School of Dental Medicine. Even more outlandish, "one woman assumed I would pay her parking ticket because the meter ran out before I had finished treating her," he says. 

Here's a tip: If the problem doesn't directly involve your health, don't make it your doctor's or dentist's responsibility.

3. You don't admit that you're not taking your medicine 

Doctors become irritated with patients who don't take their medications. They don't know that their patients may not understand the directions, believe the drugs aren't working, experienced severe side effects or can't get to the pharmacy to fill the prescription. 

New York University Medical Center cardiologist Richard Stein, M.D., says he has some patients who listen carefully, fill their prescriptions and then take exactly half as much as they should. 

"If you don't tell me that you've cut the dose, I have to assume either that the medicine isn't working, in which case I'll switch you to a different one, or that the dose is too low, in which case I'll increase it," Stein continues. Neither choice solves the problem. 

Here's a tip: If your doctor gives you a prescription for a medicine that you hesitate to take, ask why you need it, whether a lower dose would work and whether there's a substitute or less expensive alternative.

4. You diagnose your own medical problem and tell the doctor how to treat it 

Doctors grumble about patients who diagnose their own ailments or direct their own treatment. "When patients start diagnosing their own problems, we all have a problem," says Boston University's Price. "I just want them to tell me their symptoms." 

Stein of New York University has the same complaint: "I don't want a patient to tell me what tests to order. Why come to me if your going to run your own case?" He adds, "It would be much better to ask, 'Does such-and-such a test make sense for me?' Then we could have a reasonable discussion." 

Here's a tip: Ask the doctor's advice, don't give him yours.

5. You start asking questions just as the doctor heads out the door 

To get the most out of the short time you have for an office visit - anywhere between 15 and 20 minutes at latest count - it pays to come prepared with a list of questions you'd like answered. But doctors inwardly groan when you pull out a long list just as your appointment's ending. To keep the smile on your doctor's face and get the answers you need, mention at the start of your appointment that you have some questions to go over. That way, says NYU's Stein, you'll alert your doctor to leave time at the end of the visit for your questions. 

Here's a tip: If you have a lot of questions, there may not be time to answer all of them. Put a star next to the five most important ones and ask those first.

Adapted from YAHOOshine

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Massive Trove of Titanic Artifacts Headed for Auction

As fans of the Titanic (the shipwreck and/or the movie), we know you’ve already booked your trip on the Titanic Memorial Cruise, the trip that will retrace the path of the Titanic’s fateful maiden voyage on the disaster’s centennial. So what else does a Titanic groupie have to look forward to in 2012? How about more than 5,000 items salvaged from the ill-fated ship heading to the auction block?

A woman examines the Titanic's crows nest bell in
an exhibition of artifacts recovered from the wreck of
the Titanic on November 3, 2010 in London

The owner, an apparent avid collector of artifacts salvaged form one of the world’s most infamous shipwrecks, has decided to put the collection up for sale to the highest bidder. According to CNNMoney, the collection was appraised in 2007 at a value of over $189 million. Since then the collector has added even more valuable trinkets pulled from the salty depths.

No word on whether a nude portrait of Kate Winslet is included in the lot, but even if it was up for sale, the piece would be unavailable for individual purchase. Premier Exhibitions, the auction house who currently owns and displays the items around the world, has opted to sell all the items in the collection as one lot. So if you want to purchase the hypothetical Kate Winslet portrait, you must also purchase deck chairs, silverware and whatever else was pulled out of the briny deep by intrepid divers. According to the article on CNN, the artifacts in the lot were collected by salvage divers over the course of several dives over several decades, from 1987-2010.

Premier Exhibitions plans to announce the results of the auction on April 15, the anniversary of the ship’s sinking. Several other events are planned around the 2012 anniversary, including a re-release of James Cameron’s 1997 masterpiece Titanic in 3D and a reasonable sounding trip on a Russian submarine that will take passengers down to the wreckage.

And about that Kate Winslet sketch: Sorry, but it was already auctioned.

Adapted from TIME

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