Georgia K9 National Training Center Professional K9 Trainers cover the United States and have a wide range of dog training experience. They are nationally certified and are training specialists in a wide variety of K9 disciplines from dog obedience training, dog tracking and trailing, to canine narcotics detection.
Kevin Baughn
Jane Beson
Pam Medhurst
Brad Dennis
Pam Nyberg
John Salem
Laurie Strite
Sandy Stuart
Kevin Baughn
Kevin Baughn began training bloodhounds in Oct. of 1999. He worked as a San Jose Police Canine handler with his bloodhound partner “Zack” from 9/00 – 3/06. He has trained in Virginia, Texas, Colorado, and throughout California. Kevin and Zack worked urban cases throughout the Bay Area.. Kevin has testified in court on bloodhound cases ranging from stolen cars to homicides. Kevin and Zack have worked with and received letters of commendation from FBI, ATF, and local departments throughout the bay area.
Kevin has worked with handlers from Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, San Mateo Sheriff’s Office, Fresno County Sheriff’s Office, Oakland Police Department, and several more agencies at “Urban Manhunters School” passing along trailing techniques that been proven successful. Kevin also instructs a P.O.S.T. approved course “Using Bloodhounds to search for Missing Persons.”
Jane Beson
Jane is a volunteer Search Dog Handler and a founding member of South Carolina Search Dogs. She currently works an operational black Lab in scent specific Air-scent. Jane and her lab, Buck, have been partners since 2000. Jane was also operational with a team mate’s trailing Bloodhound. She is a mom of two teenage boys and the administrator of physician’s practice. She feels privileged to have taught coast to coast. As a “lowlander”, Jane loves to see lines a topo map and is fascinated by scent movement. Jane teaches with a sense of humor and enthusiasm. Jane has a strong interest in teaching handlers to see the specific things their partner’s body language tells them. She uses scent boxes and articles to teach (up-close) K9 body language. A handler will be expected to look at the terrain and “pre-think” what scent might be doing in those areas- testing their own theories and learn from what actually happens.
Pam Medhurst
Pam Medhurst has been with the San Diego Sheriff’s Search and Rescue Bureau for 11 years. She has been the Canine Unit leader for 2 years. Always a lover of hounds, Pam first trained and worked a bloodhound, and now uses slightly smaller hounds, beagles. She has had great success with ” Snickers” the beagle in trailing along with her 3 other beagles in trailing and Human Remains Detection work. Pam has gained experience as an instructor at several schools including the Canine Training Academy in Colorado. She has written and performs a program for children called ” Don’t Run Around, Stay Found ” that she takes to schools throughout the state. Pam has received the San Diego Sheriff’s Deputy of the year award for 2000, 2004, and 2006. She has also received The Outstanding Community Service Award from Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, and the 2007 Search and Rescue Member of the Year from the Calif. Reserve Peace Officer’s Association.
Brad Dennis
Brad Dennis is the National Director of Search Operations for the KlaasKIDS Foundation and its Search Center for Missing and Trafficked Children. Brad has over twenty-five years of experience in search and rescue and crisis management, and has managed search efforts for over 200 missing/abducted children around the country. He managed the community-assisted search effort following the abduction of Polly Klaas which has become the model for child abduction search strategies. Brad travels extensively throughout the United States providing dynamic and relevant instruction concerning K-9 HRD operations, advocacy to families of missing children, child abduction search management, sex trafficking of minors and serves as “Master Lead Evaluator” for the National Association of Search and Rescue (NASAR). Brad is currently working his fourth HRD K-9. Brad’s effort to locate missing and abducted children has led to the discovery of traffickers abducting and recruiting our children into the unsavory world of prostitution. Brad has been instrumental in the rescue of numerous children from sex trafficking and the intelligence he has gathered has assisted in taking down several child prostitution rings. His rescue efforts have been chronicled on CNN, The Early Show, The Today Show, Dateline, MSNBC, and 48 Hours. Besides his duties as Search Director of KlaasKIDS Foundation, he participates on the U.S. State Departments Trafficking-in-Person’s and Technology Working Group, the State of Florida Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force and the Florida Department of Children and Families Sex Trafficking Working Group. Brad is a retired Cryptologic Master Chief Petty Officer in the US Navy. He has been recognized and highly decorated for his intelligence analysis and counter-terrorism efforts.
Pam Nyberg
Pam Nyberg has been involved with volunteer search and rescue for 10 years. Pam works Labrador retrievers in human remains detection and trailing. She has been working with her current trailing partner, Bodi, since 2007.
Pam and Bodi have trained with numerous schools and have adopted the conservative approach to trailing. They are certified through NAPWDA and TTT. Bodi and Pam have also appeared on CNN, demonstrating scent specific trailing.
Pam is CART trained and a certified radKIDS instructor. radKIDS is a program that teaches children ages 3 ½ through 12 how to react and respond in the event of an abduction or attempted abduction.
John Salem
John Salem is a retired police officer from the Dearborn Police Department (Detroit, Michigan). He was a police officer for 25 years and a K-9 handler for 15 years, handling Bloodhounds Chester & Max. He was also Jeff Schettler’s primary urban trailing instructor for the first California POST certified training of its kind in the 1990′s. Due to operating in a large, urban environment, John specializes in training for the hard surface, high contamination, extreme conditions encountered when searching for persons in the city. During his career, he has more than 1,500 actual case deployments ranging from missing persons to homicide suspects. John has been qualified as an expert witness for local, state, and
federal courts of law.
John is an active instructor and training coordinator for the Law Enforcement Bloodhound Association (LEBA). He is also an instructor for the German Bloodhound Mantrailing Association (GBMA). In addition, John is an evaluator for trailing certification for these organizations. He has assisted organizations all over the country, including the FBI Canine Assistance Program.
John has received more than 20 awards ranging from local agencies to the United States House of Representatives. He was also named Optimist Club Officer of the Year as well as a recipient of the National Police Bloodhound Association (NPBA) Marcum Award.
John remains an active instructor and looks forward to sharing his experience with others.
Laurie Strite
Laurie Strite is a member of the KlaasKids Foundation K9 Search Team. She spends her time training her three search and rescue K9′s, attending seminars, assisting a neighboring SAR team as an instructor for the beginner K9′s and handlers, and is soon to begin apprenticing as a NASAR evaluator. As a NASAR SAR TECH II certified responder herself, she has been on numerous searches with KlaasKids as both a K9 handler and a flanker. She owns a four year old German Shepherd named “Nova”, a one and a half year old Aussie named “Quest”, and a young bloodhound named “Junior”. Laurie and Nova have certified together as a NASAR SAR TECH III Air Scenting K9 team. Laurie and Quest are certified as a Human Remains Detection K9 team through the National Search Dog Alliance (NSDA) and Junior is working towards a trailing certification. Laurie enjoys the teaching side of search and rescue as much as working her own K9′s.
Sandy Stuart
Sandy Stuart is a K9 handler for Pacific Crest Search Dogs in Washington State. Her current operational dogs include Ben, a TTT level 3 Bloodhound in trailing, and Kate, a Rottweiler certified in Airscent. Also nearing Airscent certification is her Border Collie “Cooper” and in HRD, her Rottweiler Grace. Sandy has competed in dog sports training, showing and breeding for most of her life. She established Pepperhaus Rottweilers in1981. Producing Rottweilers of excellent temperament, health, structure and a high degree of willingness to work with their owners. Many Pepperhaus dogs achieved Top Ten status in breed, obedience, herding, weight pulling, rally and agility. For 11 years, Sandy was the owner and head instructor for Smart Partners Dog Training. She currently owns and operates Columbia River Natural Pet Foods Inc, and most recently began a Bloodhound breeding program under the kennel name Boulder Creek Bloodhounds.
* Level 1 Certification: Technical Handler 
