Experience the first training site in the United States designed specifically for and dedicated to working canines
SDF’s National Training Campus is a mixed-use working dog mission preparedness site, dedicated to helping canines and their handlers in all working careers tackle challenges in a controlled setting before they face them during a real-life deployment. This state-of-the-art facility occupies nearly 145 acres in the foothills of Santa Paula, CA—90 minutes north of Los Angeles—the ideal place for beginning and advanced training working canine training, including disaster training props, agility equipment, handlers accommodations, and classrooms.
Our campus not only serves as our home, with the SDF team training with our canine candidates 365 days each year, it is also available for reservations of our training spaces, whether a day- or two-long training, or an entire week immersed in canine training, we can accommodate large and small groups, as well as mobilization or deployment simulation exercises.
Training Spaces
SEARCH CITY
Search City is a “neighborhood” consisting of four unique, multi-sized buildings, three open building facades, and many vehicles strewn throughout the space. Our scent delivery system can be used inside two of the buildings to pump odor through tubing to various spaces inside, creating endless possibilities for creating challenging search scenarios.
INDUSTRIAL PARK
Our most complex search area, Industrial Park consists of more than 30,000 square feet of rubble, vehicles, a collapsed highway bridge, utility vaults, a trench, and a train wreck. Designed as an advanced search scenario, Industrial Park can be divided into smaller sections, or used in its entirety to provide a difficult, longer-duration search, teams are only limited by their imaginations.
LOWER RUBBLE
This 10,000 square-foot rubble pile contains dozens of hides to benefit beginner teams and advanced teams alike, to build motivation and focus on specific training issues.
AGILITY AND DIRECTION-AND-CONTROL FIELD
Several agility and direction-and-control areas to help prepare for testing, give your dog a fun activity between training or warm up your dogs for the day.
WIDE AREA SEARCHES
With plenty of usable acreage
, our campus offers various terrain from graded hiking trails to rolling hills to deep ravines. These spaces also vary in vegetation, with some tall grass as well as open fields, as well as beautiful oak trees, providing high finds and shade.
On-site Lodging
The Handlers’ Lodge has four private rooms, two 10-bed bunk rooms, laundry, a full kitchen, and an outdoor grilling area. In addition, we have overnight RV/trailer spaces available as well.
These on-site accommodations are the perfect way to facilitate invaluable post-training conversations, maintain a team environment, and stay focused on your training throughout the duration of your time on campus.
Book your training reservations
The training calendar fills up quickly, so we recommend submitting your reservation request as early as possible to ensure your team’s schedule aligns with ours. If you have any questions, contact our Search Team Operations team at [email protected].
Eligible teams can apply for funding through our Search Team Grant for travel expenses related to deployment readiness. Learn more about all of our working dog handler benefits programs here!
We look forward to seeing you on campus!