State Fire Marshal K-9 Teams Place Big in National Conference

The State Fire Marshal’s Office is proud to announce the successful completion of national recertification training for our K-9 unit.

The unit is comprised of ten K-9 teams across the state that showcase varying skill sets including accelerant detection, tracking and EOD, or explosives, detection.

Seven of the teams took to Dallas the past week to partake in the North American Police Dog Work Association (NAPDWA) Texas K-9 Conference.

Not only did the teams pass recertification tests in their fields of focus, several earned top performance awards in varying categories.

Cpl. Robert Fain and K-9 Maily (Area 4-Shreveport) took first place in the Most Accurate Accelerant team by getting closest to the target pin.

Cpl. Matt Schulte and K-9 Harni (Area 4-Monroe), as well as Cpl. Travis Goudeau and K-9 Bono (Area 3- Alexandria/Lafayette/Lake Charles) also obtained high marks in that exercise.

Cpl. Alan Jones and K-9 Layka (Area 3- Alexandria/Lafayette/Lake Charles) were named the Explosives Detection Top Dog team.

Cpl. Kyle Piercy and K-9 Copper (Area 4-Monroe) took first place in the Tracker Top Dog team exercise.

Deputy Kristen delaBretonne and K-9 Pablo (Area 2- Baton Rouge) won one of the conference contests for best demonstrating the difference between an indication and an alert.  This team is also the first from the SFM to be nationally certified following our newly developed in-house K-9 training program.

Cpl. Matt Schulte, who created and instructs the in-house program, was appointed as the Louisiana State Coordinator for the NAPDWA.

Our remaining three teams are certified through 2019.

Cpl. Roman Ray and K-9 Billy (Area 3-Alexandria/Lafayette/Lake Charles) are certified through State Farm.

Cpl. Josh Correa and K-9 Brady (Area 1-New Orleans/Northshore) are certified through U.S. K-9.

Lt. Brian Mashon and K-9 Monty (SFM Headquarters) are certified through the ATF.