National Disaster Search Dog Foundation

One of our dogs was selected to join this program and we were pretty excited. At first, we had no idea what he’d be doing or anything about the facility or trainers. I don’t think their website was even up yet, but idk for sure.
Anyway, we got a call from one of the trainers and was able to come up and visit the facility which is located way out in the boonies north of Santa Paula. I just figured it a couple of old buildings or used trailers in the middle of nowhere with part time trainers.
As we drove up into the driveway, I was dead wrong! It’s got a beautiful entrance gate and welcoming feel to the place. It’s a park-​like setting with trees and some grassy areas, picnic tables, and lots of park park benches that are memorialized to dogs, trainers, firemen, and handlers. As we drove up to the main building we drove by a concrete rubble pile which simulated a collapsed building and ended up under a huge permanent open tent structure with a variety of agility structures ranging from beginning to advanced.
They gave us a full on tour of the facility in progress and showed us all the training areas that were in the planning stages, construction stages and some ideas of things to come. There’s a huge pile of pallets, the concrete pile already mentioned, several busted up trailers, the wilderness area and others to simulate real life scenarios that the dogs will be up against.
Then there’s the indoor training and care facilities — the kennels, the dog runs, the medical or maintenance building where the vets and caretakers watch and care over the dogs, trainer classrooms and so on. It was really a lot to take in considering what I was expecting. There’s over 100 acres of land that can be used for a variety of purposes. I was just in awe and was happy to have a very small part of the organization — the donation of our dog.
I’m not sure if the facility is open to the public, but I’d call and see if you can get a tour sometime. It’s really an eye opener to what goes on in the training of these beautiful and very intelligent animals we sometimes hear of on TV.