Nadine Conner
AMPWDA - Master Trainer
Nadine started her first responder career as a paramedic in
Illinois 35+ year ago. She moved into law enforncement testing
against 137 people and placing 7th in the hire list. She taught
grades K-12 for 4 years.
Nadine owned and DID’T train many dogs throughout her younger life,
as many of us did. They were simply pets. She acquired a lab and
decided to “learn” how to teach this lab. That decision with that
dog started her career in dog training. They went on to earn
multiple titles and certifications. Sandi, a blue heeler mix fell
into her lap and she competed with her. After that, Nadine was
hooked on dog training. The pitbull Buddy, the vizsla KitKat, the
boston Bugsy, a feral dog Willow, and more. MANY different dogs and
many hours, then days, then weeks which turned into years of
training. She opened her own dog training facitliy over 15 years ago
allowing her to train and work with many different dogs and their
owners.
Always interested in expanding her knowledge of work that dogs can
do, Nadine worked with an IPO/Schutzhund group for over a year,
certified as a therapy evaluator and CGC evaluator and continued her
education in learning, teaching, and K9s. 7 years ago, she “just
went with a friend” to watch some SAR K9s train. She went back to
watch, this time without the friend. She returned multiple times and
then joined that team and earned her SARTEC II. Her black lab
Doswell was her first working dog. He did the job NOT because he was
driven, but because Nadine asked him to. Within the year she retired
Doswell and acquired Carlee, her German Shepherd. Carlee is a
certified live find K9. Carlee has perfect drive in the cooler
weather but is very heat intolerant.
3 years later a student brought foster dog “spotted whirl wind of
crazy” to Nadine’s home for a play date. This dog didn’t play with
the rest of the dogs, instead checked out the disaster agility
equipment in the corner of the yard. As she sturdily climbed a
ladder just to see what was on top, Nadine watched. Nadine then took
her for a week to see if this dog had the right stuff for a SAR dog.
This was the beginning of the end of her normal life. She adopted
Freck and life with a high drive dog started. Freck certified 8
months later as an HRD K9.
With one or both K9s Nadine has attended over 400 hours of seminars,
some as a student and some as an instructor. Having both a
nationally certified live find and HR K9, Nadine has been on
numerous callouts in numerous states with the team she is the K9
director of and the national team that she belongs to. She brings
teaching expertise, search experience, K9 knowledge and a sar-castic
sense of humor with her as an instructor for AMPWDA live find K9
teams.
