Two college students rescued a dog from beneath a mound of snow following an avalanche at the Berthoud Pass area of Colorado over the Christmas holiday.

Bobby White and Josh Trujillo, who have a good understanding of avalanche safety, were skiing when they noticed that a large amount of snow emerged about 1,000 feet away from them. The two students hurried to gather everyone around them but were then told that a dog was seen caught under the snow, according to a phone interview with ABC News.

A Dec. 26 report sent to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center from the dog’s owner, Scott Shepherd, explained that the 2-year-old Chesapeake Bay retriever named Apollo had triggered the avalanche when it ran away from its owner. The dog scurried over to a cliff, which ended up collapsing under its weight, resulting in the avalanche that took the dog down with it.

"He started moving, and he just looked confused like, 'Why am I sliding down the hill?' And then he was just gone," Shepherd told ABC News in an interview.

Shepherd eventually found the students and told them that the dog was swept up by the avalanche. The students searched the area using avalanche beacons for any people who could be stuck and determined there we’re none. They then frantically turned their focus onto finding the dog, using 8-foot probe poles to search the snow.

White and Trujillos' search for the dog was caught on White’s GoPro.

You can hear him say in the video that searching for the dog was a like looking for a “needle in a haystack," and that they were almost ready to give up after 20 minutes of searching.

"I think we need to get out of here, that dog is dead," one searcher said. "This is why I don't like dogs in avalanche terrain to begin with. We're all like probing underneath the worst avalanche terrain in Berthoud right now."

But just as they were ready to give up the search, Trujillo saw the dogs nose poking out of the snow. "I found him!" he said repeatedly. "I can see him. He's still alive."

After being dug out, Apollo showed no signs of injury and was quickly exploring again. Shepard was grateful that the students found and saved Apollo. He believes that he couldn’t have done it without them and that they helped him learn a lesson.

"There's no way I would have found him in time to get him out there because I was still way up the slope, making my way around," Shepherd told ABC News. "I think they saved his life, and I can never be grateful enough for that."

"I feel like I got kind of got away with something that has such a huge lesson without huge consequences, like, he could have been lost forever. I thought the best case was that he was seriously injured, but nothing happened at all. It just still blows my mind,” Shepard added.