Karen Paquette began her SAR career in 2003 in Pima County, Tucson, AZ, and has deployed on over 150 searches in wilderness, urban, water, and support of law enforcement investigations. Karen serves as Training Director with Pima County’s volunteer K9SAR team, Southwest Rescue Dogs, Inc., (since 2014). She is NASAR Lead Evaluator in Land HRD and Area Search (2010). She has achieved NASAR certifications (and recertification) with three canine partners in Land HRD, Water HRD, Area live find, as well as IPWDA HRD Land and Crime Scene certification. Karen has assisted with FACTS workshops since 2013 serving as wrangler, assistant instructor, and instructor. Karen has planned, assisted with, and instructed at several Arizona State SAR conferences and SAR HRD seminars. She is now training with her 6th canine partner.
Karen retired from the field of education after 25 years, working mostly in Special Education with students with behavior disorders, developmental disorders, and learning disabilities. She also worked in a leadership capacity as a teacher mentor, coach, curriculum support provider, behavior interventionist, and specific academic interventionist. She achieved KPA-CTP (Karen Pryor Academy Certified Training Partner) in 2018. Karen enjoys gleaning training skills and concepts from sport dog training to adapt and implement in SAR training.
