South Bay Dog Board & Train

Jourdan was born and raised in Santa Cruz County. Her passion and love for dogs started at a very young age. Jourdan has owned high drive, working breeds her entire life, and realized, at a young age, that she had a natural affinity for training. The beginning of Jourdan’s career in canine training started with her seeking a higher level of training for her Australian Cattle Dogs.

She took them to an Obedience & Agility class at a local police K9 training facility. The facility owner had been training dogs fro over 30 years, and immediately identified Jourdan’s potential, and offered Jourdan her first apprenticeship.

Upon completion of this apprenticeship, Jourdan began private lessons, and group classes in obedience, protection, and agility, as well as board and trains for dogs with behavior issues, and for mobility and medical alert service dogs, and puppy raising. Jourdan’s interest for protection training and sports was peaked, and she began attending protection and obedience seminar or workshop she could.

Through these seminars and workshops, Jourdan has trained with some of the best, and most inspiring trainers in the world. She has competed at a national, and International level with her personal Belgian Malinois, and has trained and titled multiple dogs / breeds.

Jourdan who is forever a student of her craft, is happy to pass along her years of experienced, and education to her clients, and is excited to see her client dogs become happy, confident, engaged dogs.

Maddie has always had a passion for dogs. Aside from growing up with them, as soon as she graduated high school she was volunteering with a local German Shepherd rescue and shadowing a balanced trainer. After that, she began working for a company that did behavior modification and working dogs.

From there, her passion grew for working dogs and she started working with detection canines in the school system and conservation detection canines that detect invasive species. Maddie was a competitor on Americas Top Dog Season 2 and is now working towards PSA (Protection Sport Association) titles with her Malinois.

When Maddie is not working with dogs she enjoys working out, traveling and hiking (dogs are typically still included here though!).

Kathi has been working with dogs professionally for over 13 years. Her parents allowed her to get her first dog at 14 years old only because she promised to train him. She signed up for obedience classes and overtook it by week 5, helping the other students and becoming the instructor’s assistant.

She started going to client’s homes to teach private lessons when she got her driver’s license at 16 years old, and started teaching group classes for the Auburn parks and recreation department. After a little while, she wanted to do more than obedience and behavior modification, so at 18, she got her first German Shepherd and started dog sports and Search and Rescue.

She has titled several dogs in AKC obedience and rally, National Association of Canine Scent Work, Schutzhund/IPO/IGP, and Working Dogs of America venues, as well as certified in Search and Rescue for live find and human remains detection. Kathi uses balanced training methods to teach behaviors from obedience to searching to behavior modification.

Lindsey has been training dogs for over 13 years. Her passion for dogs started as a child, and only grew more as an adult. After volunteering at a dog shelter in college, she decided that she wanted to spend her career helping dogs with training and behavioral needs.

She attended the Michael Ellis School for Dog Trainers, and ended up working for the school as a training instructor for 6 years.​She became fascinated with Belgian Malinois early in her training career, and now currently breeds, trains, and raises working Belgian Malinois. She competes with them in a sport called Mondioring.

Lindsey is passionate about helping dogs and owners better understand each other to make life together more enjoyable. She considers herself a reward based trainer, but believes that punishment is a necessary part of the learning process. She uses prong collars and electric collars in a fair and consistent manner so the dog has the best opportunity to learn how to properly behavior in the world.

I began training at a very young age with my own American Eskimo from the basics to tricks. That’s where my spark and love of dogs began. Shortly after I knew I wanted to work with dogs, but never really knew what exactly. Little did I know training dogs would become a passion for me and then into my career.

I trained under great mentors that were balanced trainers that have made me the trainer I am today. Working from pet dogs, to dogs with behavioral issues to sport dogs and competing in the sport IGP with my personal dogs. I’m also an active certified explosives K9 handler with my yellow lab and have been working in detection for the past 3 years and it’s been great being able to learn more skill sets!

In my free time, I also enjoy spending it with family or traveling, as well as enjoying time with my pups!

I’ve been a K9 Handler with Nevada County Sheriffs Search and Rescue and California Rescue Dog Association (CARDA) since 2011, and with El Dorado County Sheriffs Search and Rescue for the last 2 years. With these entities I train and deploy dogs in Search efforts for missing and deceased individuals in suburban and backcountry terrains throughout the state of California.

I also serve as Mentor and Primary Evaluator for CARDA and K9 Team Lead for El Dorado County SAR. Search and Rescue sparked my interest in Obedience training and K9 scent work. I enjoy teaching handlers how to build drive in their dogs and utilize that drive to hunt specific odor.

Whether it’s human remains, natural oils, narcotics, or even certain nuts or bed bugs, teaching a dog the game of how to find what we’re looking for is sometimes challenging and always rewarding. In scent work classes, we teach the dog to associate odor (birch, anise & clove) with a reward: either high value food or a toy.

Once the dog understands the association between odor and reward, then we create the game of hunt for odor. In 2016 I became a certified dog trainer through Animal Behavior College, and in 2018 I left my job as an Animal Control Officer with Nevada County Sheriffs Office to strike out on my own as a dog trainer.

Through my company I offer Basic and Advanced 1-2-1 Obedience, behavior modification for aggressive and reactive dogs, 2-6 week Board and Train, day training, and scent work classes.

Continuing Education

• 3 day K9 Handler Development class with Cameron Ford of Ford K9, June 2020
• 2 week K9 Police/Professional Detection Training Seminar, October 2020
• 1 week K9 Sport Detection Training Seminar, again with Ford K9 in Las Vegas NV, March 2021
• Annual Locating the Dead training in San Luis Obispo, CA. This is a specialized and restricted Cadaver K9 training utilizing whole human cadavers in various scenarios including submerged in water, buried, in burned vehicles etc.
• In November of 2021 I organized a 3 day Canine Cognition Clinic with Ford K9 for our County and regional Search and Rescue K9 teams.

Jenn Cassens lives in Penn Valley CA and started training Search and Rescue dogs in 2016. She currently works 3 SAR dogs: a Golden Retriever and two Belgian Malinois. With a lifetime of training and riding horses, training dogs was a natural evolution.

She and her husband Rich Cassens, also a KoruK9 trainer, volunteer for their County Sheriffs Dept K9 Search & Rescue Team and are Mentors and Evaluators for California Rescue Dog Association (CARDA), and specialize in Basic Obedience, Scent Work, and Behavior Modification.

Jennifer has been training dogs for nearly 20 years. She has been around animals her entire life. From a young age she was exposed to all sorts of animals, from domesticated small pets to exotics and livestock. She began her journey with dog training after going to a nearby Schutzhund (now IGP) trial.

From then on- she was hooked and knew that this was what she wanted to pursue. After that, she spent many years showing, training, trialing and titling dogs. She has participated in many dog sport and training seminars and has learned from the best professionals available.

Not only does she train dogs and help their owners, but she holds a current license issued by the California Veterinary Medical Board as a Registered Veterinary Technician. She is extremely qualified and experienced in Veterinary Medicine and has worked in Specialty Practice, experiencing the most critical of cases.

She has multiple certificates in a wide variety of areas and continues her education every possible moment she can. She has gained excellent animal care and husbandry skills through this education and experience. Her passion for working with animals has allowed her to create a career doing what she loves… helping dogs and their owners co-exist.

Elena has been professionally training dogs for over six years, with experience ranging from family companions to working and sport dogs. With a B.S. in Animal Science from UC Davis, she brings a strong understanding of animal behavior and learning theory to her practical, relationship-focused approach to training.

Elena is an active competitor in Protection Sports Association (PSA) and has extensive hands-on experience with a wide variety of breeds, temperaments, and behavioral challenges. She is passionate about helping owners build clear communication with their dogs while creating reliable, practical behaviors that translate to everyday life.

When she’s not training client dogs, Elena can usually be found working with her own dogs or golfing!