Tag: Labrador Retriever

500 Club!

During our recent 2024 holiday celebration we honored three members who have each surpassed 500 search missions: An amazing milestone! Joan Hitchner, Heather Jo Cutting and Greg Varney (L-R) have responded to 503, 529 and 614 callouts, respectively, from the King County Sheriff’s Office since joining KCSD. 500 missions is an extraordinary achievement for any SAR volunteer especially a K9 handler. Please join us in congratulating the inaugural members of the KCSD 500 Club; Greg, Heather and Joan for their combined 79 years of commitment as well as thanking them for their continuing community service.

Tune in to KCSD!

Listen to “The American Canine” podcast to hear Josh Gerstman and Heather Jo Cutting discuss their 20+ years of search dog experience with host Tony McFee. The conversation covers their first exposure to search dogs through to search and rescue becoming their lifestyle. They also describe finding suitable puppies and the training required to become certified search dog team. A great listen!

Go Jet Go !

Faster than a speeding bullet, It’s Jet the Search Dog! Join us in congratulating K9 Jet and Handler Mathew on successfully completing their airscent pretest. True to her name Jet raced through 40 acres of forest and found her ‘lost’ search subjects in half the allotted time. Look for them zooming around at the next King County Search and Rescue mission.

Congrats Josh and Natick!

Join us in congratulating K9 Natick and his handler Josh on passing the National Search Dog Alliance (NSDA) Land Human Remains Detection certification test recently. Natick, a chocolate lab, is one of our most effective search dogs and is known as the “Long Ranger” in his airscent work.

Meet the crew: Labrador Retriever edition!

Our team of K9 heroes includes many different colors of Labrador Retrievers. All of our current labs are members of the airscent team and some of them are certified in human remains detection as well. For more information on the dogs, their handlers and the rest of our K9s go to our Team Member page.