Border Patrol retires K9 Sam after seven years at Uvalde station

K9 Sam retired from U.S. Border Patrol’s Uvalde Station after more than seven years of service, a quiet but operationally significant change for a sector that relies on canine teams to find people hidden in trains and cargo haulers. The Del Rio Sector marked the retirement on May 15, sharing photos and public thanks for the dog’s work.

The retirement matters because Uvalde Station dogs have repeatedly been used in train checks, where freight cars can conceal people in dangerous, confined spaces. Del Rio Sector has publicly said those checks are necessary because freight cars are not built to carry passengers, and the canine teams often provide the first alert that leads agents to hidden migrants.

That same role was on display on May 25, when Uvalde Station agents rescued 20 undocumented migrants from a locked car hauler during train check operations. A free-air sniff by a Uvalde Border Patrol K-9 team produced the alert, and the car hauler had been locked from the outside, leaving the group trapped with no means of escape. CBP said the migrants included three people from Guatemala and 17 from Honduras, and the temperature was 81 degrees.

The Del Rio Sector said it has served the Southwest border and Del Rio since July 1, 1924, and today covers 41 counties in Texas, including the Uvalde Station. Border Patrol’s canine program is headquartered in El Paso, where the Border Patrol Canine Academy conducts training, making Sam part of a larger system that stretches well beyond one station.

The sector did not identify a replacement in its retirement post. That leaves Uvalde Station’s canine workload, from rail inspections to cargo checks, tied to the broader Del Rio Sector staffing picture as the office continues to lean on publicly recognized experience and continuity. In December, the sector also marked the retirement of 17 agents with a combined 398 years of border security service, a reminder that the office often frames departures as part of keeping the border force intact.