Crosswinds Canine

06/08/2024

Today marks 5 years of Crosswinds Canine. Excited to do more and proud of what training we have already provided to LE and SAR teams these past 5 years! Message page or Email Denise to schedule into 2025

09/06/2024

We are happy to have played a small part in this trailing foundation. Fun Lab and good handler with a great training attitude! Congratulations Jay!

Congratulations to Jay and K9 Piper on passing your recertification in Trailing. Great job!!!

25/05/2024

19/05/2024

Motivated teams in VT, pleasure to train with you all and hope to be back soon!

The VT Police Canine Association hosted a wilderness air scent seminar for the NH Fish and Game Canines as well as our own VT-TF1 Canines. Members from both teams are part of the association who assist canine teams across the state.
This seminar helped prepare the canine teams for wilderness certification. We would like to extend our thanks to Denise from CO-TF1 for her talented instruction.

15/05/2024

Super time in NH helping with Detection!

Thank you from Crosswinds Canine for helping with the narcotics class this week. As expected several very long days, but lots of progression and quality hides and set ups!

20/03/2024

This K9 team was one of the teams from the fall NH seminar with Denise! Great work in the urban enviroment K9 Grimm!

Police: Sergio Torres Jr., 25, refused to stop, crashed, and fled on foot before a K-9 tracked him down near Commercial and Canal streets.

06/11/2023

Thank you NH and Maine teams for a great weekend in New Hampshire. Operational Police and. SAR teams for a weekend of trailing after a long week of trailing with the basic Patrol Class.

Many great reps and solid learning moments. Thank you to the track layers and everyone for coming out. Looking forward to next year already.

28/10/2023

Denise is on her way to NH and we have 1 slot left. Operational LE or SAR teams welcome. Message us!

15/08/2023

Denise and Beta have been deployed to Maui and are putting thier training to the test.

Experts say the grim task of finding and identifying remains of those who died in the Maui wildfire may take a while.

19/06/2023

This past weekend was on the water doing one of the “water training series” set up of over various weekends this summer. Good group of handlers and dogs.

Divers and logistics for water training are always more challenging, but we had some good help and had a great weekend of training!

05/06/2023

Obedieance to odor, over distractions….

Beta, single blind HRD hide in heavy dog odor. Uncut video

We always emphasize building the motivation in the dog over correcting the dog for distractions.

04/06/2023

Denise (and Nick) led 2.5 days of trailing in Illinois this weekend. Despite the hot weather all the teams and track layers put in max effort and helped make for a successful weekend. From foundation drills to complicated some problems, all aspects of trailing were covered in the 10 teams. Solid weekend and great trails!

23/05/2023

https://youtu.be/FCdhJX-c7H8

Gearing up for another fun summer of water search - this video shows great 'diver perspective' from last summer's training

Can search dogs really find humans underwater? Do search dogs love their jobs? Watch as dogs can successfully locate a human under 15' of water from a boat!

25/04/2023

Great seminar in CA!

10/04/2023

As seminar hosts, it's incredibly important for us to receive feedback from participants so we can improve what we offer and how we offer it.

As we reflect on last weekend, we are heartened to learn that participants enjoyed the seminar so much. For instance, one participant said "I loved how they (Denise and Nick) talked with us following our own trails, as well as talking with the group as we followed trails. I learned so much by watching others and listening to Denise and Nick.”

👉 Check out more on our website:
https://csdk9.org/spring-trailing-seminar-is-a-wrap/

If you are interested in hosting Denise and Nick for your group, reach out to them at Crosswinds Canine

08/04/2023

The Peterborough Police Department recently called upon K9 Gibbs to assist in locating suspects involved in an assault. The K9 team was able to track a subject from the vehicle involved, approximately a half mile through the woods and deep...

04/04/2023

Denise and Nick are thankful for the amazing 3 days with Cascadia Search Dogs doing trailing. Amazing seminar with so many great trails!!

03/04/2023

Sunday was day 2 in Everett WA, semi Urban and Industrial area trails.

02/04/2023

Solid day 1 in Arlington WA. Assesment trail, operational trail and start drill per team, 10 teams. Some feedback on every team/trail and some classroom whiteboard talks. Even alittle sun for 5 mins once. Looking forward to day 2!

25/03/2023

Nick will going back to Topsham Maine April 22 and 23 for 2 full days of trailing for SAR and Police. There are still 3 spots available.

Contact Chad at ([email protected]) to reserve your slot.

15/02/2023

Check out this podcast with our good friend Katelyn!

Join HITS K9 Radio host Jeff Meyer as he talks to Kate Graham from Katalyst Kennels to discuss breeding and selection single purpose dogs for detection. To reach host Jeff Meyer, email him at [email protected] For more information about HITS K9 Seminars, go to our webpage at www.HITSK9.net

11/02/2023

When we posted the "Save the Date", for our spring trailing seminar, we were overwhelmed with the response. You spoke and we listened! As a result, we changed the number of working spots from 6 to 10 by adding an additional instructor, Nick Hodgen. We hope that this will allow us to have enough working spots for those who are interested and still deliver quality reps!

The application is now open and will close on February 24th, at which time participants will be notified.

Register here:
https://forms.gle/xkaEkoJiEeR8zwBk6

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Instructor Bios:

Denise Alvord is a firefighter/paramedic in Colorado, and has been heavily involved in multiple aspects of mountain search and rescue for over 18 years. She has trained/certified 4 of her own dogs working in Trailing, Air Scent, Cadaver (land and water recovery), avalanche and disaster. She is a K9 testing evaluator for state and national SAR certification organizations. She has enjoyed the opportunity to train SAR and Law Enforcement groups across the country, working in a variety of terrain and climates across the United States and internationally. Denise has raised/trained and assisted in the training of several dogs who continued to successful SAR and LE careers. Denise enjoys training and working with handlers to assist in developing individualized training plans to maximize their dogs’ potential, emphasizing clarity as a team.

Nick Hodgen has been a Police Officer for 18 years and a K9 handler for 14 years. He is currently a Patrol Sgt. and K9 Handler in a small NH department, working his 2nd dual purpose dog who he trained on his own, outside of the traditional ‘K9 academy’. Nick is Head Trainer and has been the primary training decoy to a NH/MA regional Law Enforcement K9 training group. He has assisted with and hosted regional Patrol and Detection handler schools and has worked with individual teams to achieve tracking/trailing certifications outside of a formal academy. Nick has had opportunity to work with a wide variety of dogs, from building confidence in a lower drive or less bold dog to harnessing, controlling and focusing the “over the top” dog. Nick has learned to work with and get the most out of each individual animal.

31/12/2022

We often talk about using the environment to set up your tracks to empower the dog. We also often talk about looking to where the leaves and vegetation gather to see where the most odor might be.

This photograph of where a track was laid today is a super nice example of a channel of where odor maybe (leaves) that we would use to set up a track for a dog that needs to be more empowered on odor.

The channel will give a really nice picture that they can pull hard into harness on.

Already discussing dates for seminars in 2023 contact us to set up more!

24/11/2022

Nick and Gibbs putting the work in!

On 11/22/22 at approximately 6:00pm, the Hillsboro Police Department respond to a single motor vehicle crash on Old Henniker Road where officers found a vehicle with extensive damage. The driver was not found with the vehicle, and ultimately Canine Gibbs and Sergeant Hodgen began trying to track the driver. It was suspected that the driver may be suffering from a head injury.

Canine Gibbs tracked from the crash scene almost 3/4 of a mile, heading from the scene towards Emerald Lake through the woods. The track then began coming back through the woods towards a direction that would ultimately lead towards the driver's residence.

Believing that the subject was trying to make it home and with the search team fatiguing. The track was stopped and the search team regrouped while officers were sent to the driver's residence. After not locating the subject at the residence Canine Gibbs and Sergeant Hodgen re-entered the woods and began an area search from the residence back towards where the initial track had ended.

About 1/8 of a mile into the woods Canine Gibbs was able to locate the driver underneath some thick trees and bushes.

The driver was found to be barely breathing and showing signs of hypothermia and a medical condition. Officers were able to get the driver, the medical attention he needed and he was ultimately transported to the hospital.

The Hillsboro Police Department would like to thank officers from the Antrim, Deering and Henniker Police Departments for assisting in this effort.

31/10/2022

Spectacular day 2 in NH! Good learning as we challenged the teams a little bit more in technical skills. Geralyn, Caitlin, Samantha and Allie were pro track layers and we could not have done another 25 total repetitions without them

30/10/2022

1st day of tracking/trailing in New Hampshire with LE teams from NH and MA was large sucess. Teams that are already operational and finding people were given tips and structure to their training that will only make them more efficient in the future. Great weather and work attitude all around!

Special thanks to our track layers borrowed from Katalyst Kennels staff. Only with their help we were able to run 25 trails all across downtown Concord!

28/09/2022

Go Bane!!

This morning at 0814 hrs, Officer Steward and his K9 partner .9_bane assisted the Shirley Police Department with the ex*****on of a search warrant on Davis Street.

The search yielded a combination of 180 grams of m**h, he**in and percocet. The male subject was subsequently arrested for trafficking in a Class B Substance (Methamphetamines), possession with intent to distribute Class A Substance (He**in), and possession of a Class B Substance (Percocet).

12/09/2022

Super cool video created by one of our amazing volunteer divers - this footage was taken during the first weekend of a summer long series of water search dog training.

We just finished up weekend 4 - so much fun seeing the progress in all the teams (dogs and even the handlers too!😜)

Water search training for search and rescue dogs. Scuba divers, boat captains, dog handlers, shore support and search and rescue dogs unite for a day of lear...

10/09/2022

Rain and colder temps kept us off the lake for the full day as planned. But the summer water search series continued in the classroom for today!

Multiple weekends with the same crew is preving to be great learning for handlers and dogs!

08/09/2022

Stitch ball search. Stitch is in NH right now but may come to CO soon to keep being prepared for a police career.