KEVIN BAUGHN
Trainer
Kevin Baughn has been involved in handling and training scent specific trailing canines for over 20 years. He started as a Bloodhound handler for the San Jose Police Department with his Bloodhound partner, “Zack” in the late 1990’s. Together they worked urban cases that included searching for at risk missing children/elderly persons to violent offenders and everything in between. He also developed and instructed a P.O.S.T. approved course “Using Bloodhounds to search for Missing Persons.” Kevin and Zack have worked with and received letters of commendation from FBI, ATF, and local departments throughout California.
Kevin has testified in court on scent specific trailing cases ranging from stolen cars to homicides and has extensive knowledge and experience he passes along. On one such case the judge submitted material to the California Association of Judges for rules concerning jury instruction on the verbiage of “Trailing”and “Tracking.”
Kevin has trained hundreds of handlers of every police K9 breed throughout the United States and around the world. He specializes is working with those handlers to read and interpret their K9 partners better. Kevin instills in every handler an easy to follow common sense approach to systematically catalog and organize the information gathered from their K9 partner and the trailing environment. This tried and true system propels K9 teams to the next level of tactical, safe, and successful manhunts.
As a result of his years of training and experience, he has identified three major classifications for trailing canine searches that help agencies determine how their resources are to be deployed and identify the search procedures to be implemented for searching for missing persons, misdemeanor and non-violent offenders, and felons and/or violent offenders. The objective is to provide a proper and safe response to ensure a safe and successful outcome for the handlers, community, and person(s) being searched for.