Jensen Design & Survey, Inc. is currently providing entitlement permitting, engineering, and survey services for a new National Training Center (NTC) in Santa Paula for the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation. The NTC will be the only facility of its kind in the nation and will be specifically designed for training first responder, urban disaster search and rescue canine teams.

Search Dog Foundation teams have responded to the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, the La Conchita mudslides on January 10, 2005, the Metrolink train collision in Chatsworth on September 12, 2008, the Haiti Earthquake on January 12, 2010,  the 2001 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, and more recently, the earthquakes in Nepal.

The project will include the retrofit/remodel of existing structures and construction of new facilities. The NTC will include a welcome center, organization offices, a caretaker’s residence, accommodations for handlers, a training pavilion, and other accessory structures. A large portion of the site will be utilized for canine training using rubble piles and props such as barrels, ladders, tunnels and modular structures constructed like a movie set for easy alteration to avoid repetition memory in canine training. Search and rescue simulations will occur during the daytime and in the evening. All of these training areas mimic real life-saving conditions to which SDF canine disaster search teams are deployed.