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Steve Dunham

Owner / Certified Trainer / Ret. Police K9 Handler

I began training dogs in the early 1990’s. While serving in the military, money was very tight. A local dog trainer needed some help and I wanted to learn how to train my dog. We bartered and I was hooked on dog training. After leaving the military in 1994, I became a career law enforcement officer. In 1998 I had an opportunity to become a K9 handler, and it was to become the best job of my career. I had the privilege to work 4 police service dogs during the course of my law enforcement career. Training and handling working dogs was my passion. I immersed myself into learning anything and everything I could by attending schools, workshops, reading, and by working with hundreds of dogs.

Police Dog Services LLC was born in 2006. At Police Dog Services our mission was to procure and train high quality police dogs and provide basic and advanced training for handlers.

In 2017, I retired from law enforcement and pet training became my new path.

In March 2021 I founded Dog Training Personalized LLC. It was time to rebrand and form a second company that, by name, would be a more accurate reflection of the work I was doing. In 2021 we added three very talented trainers to our staff.

It is an amazing opportunity to work in a field where we are able to assist dogs and their people have a better quality of life together, as a direct result of our training program.

Favorite Dog Story:
While working as a police officer, there was a short period of time where a dentist office had been broken into overnight, approximately 10 times. We had stepped up our patrols, had a special alarm installed that made immediate contact with our dispatch center, put officers inside on overnight details… There were times when officers arrived and gave chase but it seemed the suspects were always one step ahead of us. Our extra efforts and lack of success was becoming discouraging to say the least. It became the personal mission of several officers to put handcuffs on these guys.

One night while working, the alarm sounded in our dispatch center and I happened to be close to the dentist office. I along with other responding officers quickly established a perimeter on the block surrounding the dentist office. Once we felt confident that our perimeter was locked down I deployed my K9 to conduct a search of the area.

Almost immediately he gave me an alert that he was smelling the odor of someone. He took me into the back yard of a residence and began jumping at the base of a large tree. Upon shining my flashlight into the tree tops, I saw a small patch of clothing high up in the tree. As it turned out he had located and alerted me to all three suspects hiding in the tree tops. They were taken into custody.

That was the last time the dentist office had a break-in.
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