NCC 2026 Dinner and Speaker

Kim Cooper has been a member of the Ottawa Valley SAR Dog Association (OVSARDA) and a SAR dog handler since 1991.  She retired from a career as an Air Force engineering officer and became owner/senior instructor of Best Friends Dog Training in Ottawa, which she ran for 30 years.   A cadaver dog handler since 2007, she has certified through the OPP, FEMA, IPWDA and NAPWDA over the years.  Currently, she has been active in exploring the possibilities of Historic HRD dogs and their application to searches for unmarked graves at residential schools.

For the past three years, OVSARDA has been deploying human remains detection dogs to archeological projects in the search for unmarked graves. Most of these searches have been related to Indian Residential Schools. This session will present background on this ground-breaking operational profile, K9 training and deployment considerations, as well as lessons learned through participation in dozens of anthropological projects.

This seminar offers a rare opportunity to learn directly from real-world operational experience at the intersection of canine detection work, archaeology, and historical investigation.