Join us as we delve into the world of search and rescue with Dr. Kim Stewart and her faithful canine companion, Seamus, a Labrador Retriever. Learn about their training, experiences, and the vital role they play in helping find missing persons. Dr. Stewart shares insights into Seamus’ training, physical fitness regimen, and the challenges and rewards of search and rescue missions.
Dr. Kim Stewart graduated from the Ohio State College of Veterinary Medicine in 1989. She moved to Texas and practiced in San Antonio for three years before establishing College Hills Veterinary Hospital in College Station, Texas in 1994. She practices small animal medicine and surgery. College Hills Veterinary Hospital prides itself on excellent patient care and client communication. Dr. Stewart serves as the team veterinarian for the Search Dog Network of the Brazos Valley. She is also a K9 Handler and her black Labrador, Seamus and I are a certified K9 Search & Rescue team.
https://www.searchdogs.org/about-us/our-members/kim-stewart/
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Search And Rescue With Dr. Kim Stewart And Her Labrador, Seamus With Dr. Kim Stewart
Introduction To Seamus And Dr. Kim’s Search And Rescue Background
Janet, we are so lucky. One of my classmates, Dr. Kim Stewart, is a search and rescue person with her dog, Seamus. Little background, she’s an Akronite, so local to us, did her undergrad at Akron. She of course, went to OSU College of Veterinary Medicine. We graduated together in 1989. She did this working dog practitioner thing at Penn State College of Veterinary Medicine.
She is certified with the Emergency Management Institute, the US Department of Homeland Security, I’m getting nervous already, FEMA, the National Incident Management System, and she’s done all these lectures on search and rescue. More than 50 search and rescues. I am so impressed by the work you and Seamus are doing. You are helping so many people, be it alive or not, but we just can’t wait. Janet, I don’t know if you want to start because I have a million questions.
What kind of dog is Seamus?
He’s a Labrador Retriever, so he’s a black Lab. I’ve had Labradors for almost 40 years, I guess.
How do you train a dog to be search and rescue? How does he know what to go for?
The hunting breeds of which he is tend to be some of the better choices because they already have inbred in their psyche to use their nose to hunt for things. Labradors are classically bird dogs, duck dogs, dove dogs, quail, upland game, upland birds, or waterfowl, but we just train the nose that he’s hunting for something else, a different odor.
I see Seamus is in the background.
He’s in the background, yeah. He’s taking his afternoon nap.
Is it his day off?
Yes, well he had his swimming workout.
Now that’s a good question. Does he have some work out daily or how do you do that?
We try to. He’s nursing a left front limb injury, so we’re having to deal with that a little bit. Pool workouts are good because they’re non-weight-bearing, and he does sprint training in the pool for his cardiovascular fitness. He’s a retriever, so that’s pretty easy to do. As long as there’s a ball or a bumper or toy in the in the pool, he’s fine with that.
Does he have a personal trainer?
I am his personal trainer. He also works with a physical therapist at Texas A&M, and he does water treadmill work with, and we do cold laser therapy at my clinic. He has does some balance core work, abdominal work like planking, and balance work for his front and left back legs, and so we do all that at home, but they wrote the program for me, and so he does that to try to prevent injury. They’ve shown if their core is stronger, they can prevent especially ACL or CCL tears in their knee, so we try to keep them healthy.
He does the downward-facing dog really well.
He does, that’s his trophy. That’s his stretch every morning.
Kim, I want to start at the beginning. What made you and Seamus go into tracking and search and rescue? Was it your idea or was he already tracking? Fill us in.
I guess something in the back of my mind that I thought would be fun and rewarding to do with a dog at some point is to look for missing people. He was a very high-drive, high-energy dog, so he needed a job. Agility just wears and tears at their joints. Labs aren’t great at agility. Dock diving, a lot of Labs like that, but that’s definitely you have to have safe water, it’s got to be the right time of year.
Just running with him, again, is a high-impact injury to their joints. When I got the opportunity to go spend the day with Texas Task Force, and they have a K9 team there, somebody had recommended that maybe Seamus would fit the bill and it is. It’s a great team, but it’s hard to run a business and be on task force because if you get deployed, you’re gone for two weeks.
There was a wilderness team that some of the Task Force K9 handlers were also on. Instead of doing search work for urban disasters, they look for the missing in the woods. I went over and then spent part of the day with them and decided, “Yeah, this is the team we want to try out for and the team he needs to be on.”
You have to try out?
Yeah. First, you have to be voted on the island in search and rescue. Even if you’re not a K9 handler, you have to learn to be safe in the woods, you have to get trained in orienteering and how to search a crime scene, how to search tracks in the woods, how to do have what we call clue consciousness or clue awareness to look for clues that might lead you to the missing person.
We have to get certified with search and rescue, the NASAR, National Accredited Search and Rescue organization for United States. We have to get certified through them, we have to take swift water awareness classes to make sure we don’t drowned or we at least can prevent ourselves from being at higher risk. We have to learn the incident command system, which is what law enforcement does when there’s a disaster, how inter-agencies can work together and they know the chain of command and how it works. We have to be certified in all of that.
When a crime happens, how do the local police, the FBI or whoever it is, are there different agencies or organizations all over the country and they call one of them?
Understanding The Certification Process And Working With Law Enforcement
Yes, so depending on what they need a search dog for. If it’s a missing child with Amber Alert, they have to know where they were last seen that they were abducted. For an Amber Alert to even meet the criteria for an Amber Alert, you have to prove they’re in danger, know where they might have been last. Law enforcement in the local area usually calls you out first. Sometimes it’s Sheriff, sometimes it’s Police or Fire, depending on who runs search and rescue in the city and the county. It can go to a much higher level. We’ve been called out by the FBI and we’ve been called out by Texas Rangers, we’ve worked for ICE, we’ve worked with the Texas Attorney General, and we’ve worked with DPS. We’ve worked with law enforcement from city all the way to national level.
Does Seamus have like fans? Do you know what I mean?
I know there are a lot of search dogs who have pages where they have their own Instagram because we do work crime scenes, we do want to maybe keep our profile a little bit lower if somebody decided to maybe hold a grudge.
Have you ever felt threatened when you’re out there with Seamus?
Not so we always go with law enforcement. Now, I was on a search that there were alligators in the water and alligators coming on shore, that was probably the most threatening search I’ve been on. The natural threat snakes, of course, we have snakes here, and alligators. We have terrain that can be threatening, and storms do come up pretty quickly here in Texas. We’ve had to get out of search areas and get to high ground quickly because flash flooding, unfortunately, does happen in our state.
What motivates Seamus?
He thinks his ball is out there somewhere eternally. He’s a human remains detection dog, so they used to call those cadaver dogs. They have gotten away from that term, at least when the general public, because it can be offensive, maybe. They believe their loved one is still alive. They might not even know that Seamus is a different type of dog, but law enforcement determines when that resource needs to be used.
They actually got away from that term when the Challenger crashed, and the media kept calling the astronauts cadavers, and NASA was very offended as were the families. Human remains detection, but we pair the odor, so we train on source that has human remains odor and we pair that odor with a reward and it’s his toy. We train them not to just find their toy or the odor that they’ll get their toy for, but also that they can tell us that they’ve found it.
He uses what’s called an active alert when he finds odor. He stands beside it and barks until we catch up with him. Some dogs have passive alerts where they lay beside what they found and they stare at it, that’s a bomb dog. A lot of narcotics dogs do that because maybe they don’t want to alert a lot of attention to themselves or set off a bomb, obviously.
Seamus uses an active alert when he detects odor—he stands beside it and barks until we catch up. Some dogs use a passive alert, lying beside the find and staring at it, like bomb detection dogs. Share on XIn the wilderness, we like to have that active alert that dog that can get us to them quickly, especially if it’s we can’t see them, they’re in dense woods or they range. He might range a quarter to a half mile away from me when we’re searching, he moves a little faster with four legs. We just need to be able to find where he is where he’s barking.
Does he start digging or does he just bark?
They’re not allowed to dig because that could disturb a crime scene. That’s a no-no.
Is there an internship? You can only do so much class work, and then do you like follow another dog? How does it progress?
You’re best off to get with a team, a local a team in your area with seasoned K9 handlers that have done it for a number of years. Every handler has a different way of doing things, they have different advice that they might give you, which is all great. Not all the advice is going to work for you or your dog. Depending on your personality, your dog’s personality, so you take all that information sort through it, sift through it and see what works, but finding a good mentor is really key to being successful. I’ve been fortunate here on our team, which is Search Dog Network of Bryan-College Station. The team has been here for almost 30 years, so there’s a lot of experience on the team.
Were they involved? Were the teams involved in the Columbia?
Our former commander of our team, the president of our team, he was involved in those searches because he was military then and he was actually in Colorado at that time, so he was involved first-hand in that. When he left the military and moved here, he started our branch of Search Dog Network and he was worked with Texas Task Force when he came here.
The task forces came about after the Oklahoma City bombing. The world watched as Oklahoma struggled to be able to integrate the law enforcement and rescue operations to deal with this catastrophic disaster, and so Texas was one of the first states that said, “That’s not going to be us.” They started Texas Task Force 1. Now there’s not every state has a task force, but most do. Texas has two because it’s a big state. One’s based here with Texas A&M University, and then the other one’s based in Dallas, Task Force 2.
Chain of command is very important then, isn’t it?
It is, because you have to know who’s in charge and you have to be able to take orders and understand what your resources are and communicate and be able to sit and wait, which sometimes is hardest, but yeah.
When we interviewed Dr. Rustin Moore, our classmate, the Dean, when he was over in New Orleans for Katrina, he was telling me how important it was when he got there about saving the horses. He said nobody was in charge, everyone was just standing around looking at each other, and he said, “I took charge,” and it makes a big difference because “Okay, you go here, you go there.” You have to have a plan. I can’t even imagine in that Oklahoma City bombing how horrible to not have a chain of command and say, “Okay, this is where we’re going to start and this is how we’re going to proceed.”
There’s been several since the building collapse in Florida, of course, 9/11. Fortunately, the task force were around for 9/11.
Community Outreach And Educational Demonstrations With Search Dogs
Do you ever take Seamus to schools? I bet it would inspire kids, you as a veterinarian and Seamus as a lovely pet. How does that go?
Yes, we have our speaking circuit, so to speak. We do obviously a lot of different things, a lot of different groups here in town, whether they’re the Women of the Texas Republic or there’s a class that I lecture in once every semester at Texas A&M. It’s a class called Aggie ACHIEVE, and they teach a domestication of animals course.
The Aggie ACHIEVE program is actually for students that are developmentally disabled, will never be able to have a college degree, but they get to go to college, live on campus, get certificates in different courses. One of the courses is the domestication of animals. They focus on horses, dogs, and they also do some of the things like poultry domestication of animals through the food chain/ it’s a great opportunity for these kids to get that college experience. I have a younger sister who’s developmentally disabled and to think that she could have done something like that when she was young would have been just a great opportunity.
We do that. There’s a criminal justice camp at the Sam Houston State University here and they teach criminology. They offer a lot of college degrees in criminal justice, so he does go and does usually in the summers lectures there and demonstrations. We probably do half a dozen a year that we do demonstrations. Once a month we go down to City of Bryan.
It’s what they call First Friday, where all sorts of volunteer organizations are there and we’re with Amber Alert when we’re there. He’s out there meeting the public. The dogs really draw the public in. We get the families to come in and get these kits and be prepared. “Get your kid registered and have everything you might need, because, God forbid, your child would go missing, you don’t want to be scrambling to find out what the steps are.” The dogs are really good icebreakers to have that conversation with parents.
Seamus was a cover boy on Inside Magazine. Tell us that, because we have a picture. Tell us how that came about.
Inside Magazine is a local magazine that just celebrated its 40th anniversary, they’ve served Brazos Valley for quite a number of years. They approached our president. They were doing a whole issue on not-for-profits that go above and beyond for the community. Search Dog Network was nominated and they came out and spent a couple training sessions with the team and got their bios of some of us. They decided that they wanted to use Seamus as the cover dog and then do an extra insert on him, since he’s currently the most experienced dog on the team, and you know, that changes. That was fun and he’s very sociable, so he’s makes friends easy, so he’s very approachable.
I saw on Facebook about the cocktail party. Was he there for that?
He did not go. I thought it might be easier not to have the high-energy dog with me.
When they’re puppies, is there like an instinct that you know which one’s going to be a good rescue dog?
Screening Process And Training Attributes For New Search Dogs
Actually, that happens. Those of us who are handlers, we want to know how to screen dogs because, inevitably, we’re going to have to do it again. Unfortunately, our dogs age out, which is probably the hardest thing for handlers. They age out or they injure out or get sickness, and so we have to pull them from the field. We want to be able to as quickly as we can identify the next dog.
Unfortunately, our dogs eventually age out, which is one of the hardest parts for handlers. They may age out, be injured out, or develop illness, and we have to pull them from the field. Our goal is to quickly identify and train the next dog as soon as… Share on XSometimes it’s easier to get a young adult dog, maybe at a shelter or a hunting breed that somebody’s decided they don’t have time for and see if they have the attributes that they need to be a good search and rescue dog. The first and foremost is toy drive. That means, “I want to play with that toy and I want to play with it all the time,” because that is the reward usually. Occasionally, dogs will work for food, a Labrador would work for food, but there are downfalls to that, obviously.
They just ate, they’re full and now you get a call and maybe they’re not going to be as driven. If some dogs get GI upset when they’re working hard or they’re excited, do we want to fuel that fire with food reward? Definitely, toy drive and toy reward is the best and dogs who love those toys, no matter what the toy. There was a dog that his toy was he carried around a golf club. That was his toy.
A metal golf club?
A metal golf club. I said, “I think I would have trained that out of that dog,” but it’s not my dog, I’m not his handler. Hard to pack in your pack, but whatever. They have to have what we call the hunt or the prey drive where they will continue to look for their toy when it’s out of sight. It’s one thing to be excited when they see the toy in your hand or see it on the ground.
We test them for that too, we take the toy and we throw it in heavy, dense grass or high tall weeds and the quick screening is they have to look for it for at least a minute, preferably two minutes, before they give up or they can or for as long as it takes for them to look for it, as long as they look for two minutes. Those are the quick screening.
The third thing we screen for is toy possessiveness. We want don’t want a dog so possessive of the toy that once they get it, they won’t give it back and start working again or they resource guard and you can’t get the toy from them at all and they start becoming maybe aggressive about it. We don’t want that either. They have to be friendly because we do interface with the public. We don’t want them to be aggressive with strangers or people. They can’t be aggressive with other dogs because they may be working next to another dog in the field and they have to be able to ignore that other dog because their toy is more important than that other dog or that other person over there. Yeah, so there’s screening for sure.
The last thing we look for is nerve strength, because they’re asked to go in new situations all the time. They can’t be afraid to bust brush, they can’t be afraid to maybe swim across a stream or go up a ravine or go through a tunnel, or a pipe. Sometimes there’s lots of sounds we’re working with helicopters and drones.
I’m curious. You mentioned you carry a pack. Is that you carry first aid supplies? What do you carry?
The biggest thing we carry is water. The single most dangerous thing for our working dogs is overheating, not staying hydrated. We carry a K9 first aid pack and a human first aid pack. We do have to carry things like a muzzle, and I carry a type of harness. It’s like a stretcher, but I can wear it like a backpack. It folds up but all four legs and I can carry it on my back if he would get hurt and pack him out.
Usually, I’m not by myself. I have somebody else working with me, a flanker. Of course, things to stop the bleeding if he got a snakebite, those type of things, a penetrating wound. Pretty basic first aid. We do carry things for a victim, especially a live victim like a solar blanket to wrap them in, something if we needed to make a neck or head support for that individual. Of course, usually extra water and lots of water, obviously for ourselves, but for the K9, yeah, as well.
You must have a personal trainer if you’re going to carry that dog on your back.
We do have to pass the physical fitness test to be on the team. The wilderness pack test, which generally it’s carrying 25 pounds on your back over two miles, and you have to get that 2 miles done without running in 30 minutes, and it’s usually on uneven terrain. We’ve got to pass that. Whether you weigh 200 pounds or 100 pounds, you still have to carry 25 pounds.
Janet, I don’t think people have any idea the training that goes into this.
It’s not for the faint of heart and unfortunately, we get a lot of people that are enamored with it and want to come out. We usually very early on say, “Okay, follow us into the brush.” Sometimes we’re on our hands and knees under the brush, sticking with the dogs and that weeds out the faint at heart pretty quickly.
This is terrible, but seeing a dead body or remains would be upsetting to some people.
You’re right, it can be, and usually there are resources and we try to remind especially flankers that are working with us that are trained in search and rescue but aren’t K9 handlers. We might not know them as well as I do my teammates if we’re working with other teams. We do have to talk about that. “This can be traumatizing right now or maybe in a month or two it’s traumatizing or a year from now it’s traumatizing.” you have to understand that it can be hard to process and there are people to talk with about that so you can process it and not end up being depressed or permanently scarred.
Do you have a favorite story from being out in the field with Seamus?
Probably my proudest one of my proudest moments of Seamus was a sad story, and a lot of our stories are sad. He’s been on 50 missions and has found 10 victims, so probably the saddest was a 3-year-old, a little girl. Seamus was three years old when he found her. She was abused. We were able to find her for the police.
She had been missing for a while and it was a big search for this little girl, her name was Raven Shields. It’s published. There was a lot of lying by her family and lying to the FBI and to the police and child protective services. By the time we found her, the coroner could not identify how she died, which is very unfortunate.
It was our day in court, so we got called to court, and that is always what they warn you about. “Keep good records.” Seamus wears GPS so we can prove where he’s been and document everything, because one day, you might be called to court, which we were three years later. His search was recorded by bodycam. They played that to the jury, and I discussed how scent theory works, why he was moving the way he was, what his final trained response, that bark and hold is and then what led to that area being excavated to find her remains.
We were mainly used to try to help law enforcement and help the DA put her away for child endangerment, deformation of a corpse, lying to police, the FBI. She got 70 years, so that made me pretty happy. To see that we have these amazing creatures that have this ability that we don’t have to do a job that I believe Seamus was created to do.
He does love doing it. On the video, he’s doing his job, he’s wagging his tail and he’s happy, and to try to educate law enforcement and educate the DA, “This is a dog doing his job helping you.” That was fun too, educating this group of people who have never worked with a dog what they can do.
I want to know what you feed Seamus. It’s got to be some high energy.
I actually use Purina Pro Plan, so they have the sporting line, so that’s the high protein. Of course, they have to stay fit. Does he also eat apples and carrots? Yes, those are what we stuff his Kong with. Those are his favorites. A Lab will eat anything, mind you, but you know, he’s an apple, carrot guy as well.
He’s got to keep that figure.
That’s right. We monitor those calories.
Janet, he puts us to shame. He really does.
I’ve got to tell you, though, I can kick ass in a plank.
I have a weird center of gravity, I can’t. I know what you want me to ask Dr. Stewart. Her human or pet peeve. Kim, what do you say to that?
Personal Pet Peeves Regarding Emotional Support Animals
It’s humans that try to use their pets for the wrong reason. My pet peeve is the emotional support animal. Unfortunately, the number one reason that someone tries to register their pet as an emotional support and you can do it for $35 on the internet, get vest and letters, is so they don’t have to pay their pet deposit. That’s the number one reason why people do it.
Number two reason is so they can fly in an airplane. What that does is it kicks off the true service dog that needs to be on the airplane because they’re only allowed to have so many pets inside an airplane, in the cabin. That’s very frustrating. It also most of the emotional support animals you see are not trained. Those people are actually putting their dogs and cats and peacocks, whatever, in stressful situations that they’re not prepared to be in. It’s an oxymoron that your dog, your pet isn’t an emotional support, they need emotional support because you’re putting them in a situation that they’re not trained to be in.
Most emotional support animals you see are not properly trained. People often place dogs or cats into stressful situations they aren’t prepared for. It’s an oxymoron—calling them “emotional support” when they’re the ones needing support due to the… Share on XI didn’t know that that bumped other pets off. I had no idea.
Janet, I don’t know about you, but I think I’m going to train Libby now, your dog and my Annie, because they’re just laying around.
I have to say, Libby is a Golden Retriever. She’s a rescue. I’ve never seen a dog. I’ll throw the ball and she’ll be like, “There it went,” and then she’s taken aback for a second, then she does a thing like this where she swoops the whole territory like an S, like she’s trying to find it. She’ll keep going until she finds that tennis ball.
That’s a natural behavior in retrievers. It’s called quartering. Some handlers try to teach their German Shepherds or their Duchy or maybe a Border Collie or GSP to do it, and it’s not a natural behavior for those breeds. The Retrievers, it is. That is another great benefit with using a Retriever.
She won’t give up until she finds that ball. I’ll whistle to get her and she’ll be like, “I’m busy.” She’s still scoping out, trying to find it.
A search dog in the making right there.
I think she’ll be good at it.
I guess we’re going to wind it up. I learned so much, Kim. It’s an exceptional thing. Not only the dog, but the handler. Everything that you’ve gone through and learned, it’s amazing to me. It really is. How many years have you been doing this?
As of 2024, we’re seven years in.
Are you considered like a senior in the program?
Maybe my age too, I don’t know.
We’re old enough, I want the discount.
How old is she?
She’s 10 years younger than me because I was 10 years old.
No, the dog. How old is the dog?
Seamus is 9 in 2024.
There’s no age to retire him, right?
No, like I said, mainly it’s if they have an injury or illness, which we’re struggling with his left leg lameness lately, but we’re working through it.
Thank you. This has been amazing. Really appreciate you. Thank you.
Important Links
About Dr. Kim Stewart
Dr. Kim Stewart, our esteemed veterinarian and College Hills Veterinary Hospital founder, has always believed in dogs’ remarkable abilities. Her Labrador Retriever, Seamus, is a shining example of what a dog can achieve with proper training, dedication, and a strong bond with its handler. Realizing Labrador Retrievers have a natural hunting instinct, Dr. Stewart decided Seamus was an excellent candidate to use his hunting instincts for something else—Search and Rescue.
Training a SAR dog is no small feat. It requires specialized training for the dog, which takes months. Under Dr. Stewart’s careful guidance, he underwent rigorous training, honing his natural instincts and learning advanced skills to prepare him for the demanding Search and Rescue dog role. Seamus can track scents over long distances, navigate challenging terrains, and stay focused under pressure. He has even gained the unique ability to perform search and rescue in water.
We are proud to share a special video interview featuring Dr. Kim Stewart and Seamus for a glimpse of what it means to train a Search and Rescue dog, the dangers they encounter, and its impact on saving lives. Click on the link below to watch Dr. Kim Stewart’s interview with Speaking of Pets: https://youtu.be/EtFiDs8E34Y?si=wDBJwjTXlR-sR-sc
Supporting Service Dogs: The Heroes Among Us
There are numerous ways to support service dogs and the organizations that train them. Many service dog organizations operate as non-profits and rely heavily on public support to continue their vital work. Recognizing National Service Dog Month can be both meaningful and impactful. Here are five ways you can participate and show your appreciation:
1. Support Service Dog Organizations
Donate
Many service dog organizations are non-profits that rely on donations to train, care for, and place service dogs with those in need. Consider making a financial contribution to these organizations to help support their mission.
Volunteer
Offer your time to a local service dog training organization. Volunteering can involve anything from helping with events to fostering dogs in training.
Sponsor a Service Dog
Some organizations offer sponsorship programs where individuals or groups can fund the training of a service dog, following the dog’s journey from puppy to working professional.
2. Support Legislation for Service Dogs
Advocate for laws and policies that protect the rights of service dogs and their handlers. This includes supporting accessibility in public spaces, housing, and employment.
3. Respect Service Dogs in Public
When encountering a service dog, it’s important to respect that the dog is working. Avoid distracting the dog by petting or interacting with it without the handler’s permission.
Kim Stewart, a 1989 graduate from The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine, established College Hills Veterinary Hospital in January 1994. She has always believed in dogs’ remarkable abilities and has been involved in various initiatives, including training her Labrador Retriever, Seamus, as a Search and Rescue dog. Dr. Stewart is certified as a Working Dog Practitioner through the Penn Vet Working Dog Center program at the University of Pennsylvania College of Veterinary Medicine. She has also been featured on the “Life with Lisa Bradshaw” show, discussing her work with Seamus and the Search Dog Network in Texas.