A dog presumed dead after being swept away in an avalance that killed his owner miraculously survived the ordeal -- and found his way back to the motel in which he'd last stayed.

The Welsh corgi, Ole, accompanied David Lee Gaillard and his wife on a backcountry ski trek in Montana when the avalance struck, killing Gaillard and another man who had been snowmobiling. "His last words to me were, 'Retreat to the trees,'  Kerry Corcoran Gaillard told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. "I think he saw what was coming from above, that I did not see."

Search and rescue team members hunted for Ole, but were "positive" that the pup had been buried alongside his father. But four days after the tragedy -- as Gaillard's daughter was fashioning a memorial poster to honor the memory of her dog -- Ole resurfaced at the motel, four miles from where the avalance occurred.

"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. Ole, hungry and exhausted, was driven back home and reunited with his remaining family.  Gaillard's step-daughter said he's now doing "really well."

"We needed this," one rescue worker said of Ole's miraculou survival. "It kind of cheered everyone up."