INSTRUCTORS

Steve Sprouse

Steve Sprouse has been in Law Enforcement for 28 years and a K-9 handler/trainer for 23 years. He is currently the patrol dog trainer for the Broward County Sheriff’s Office in South East Florida. He is a Florida Department of Law Enforcement K-9 Instructor , K-9 Team Evaluator and USPCA regional judge. Steve is also certified as a Simunition Scenario Instructor.  In 2002 one of his dogs received “Honorable Mention” for the AKC Law Enforcement Dog of the year award.

He has had several K-9 training articles published in various police canine publications and has taught at numerous police canine training seminars and conferences throughout North America. Steve has placed as high as first place in numerous regional and national police K-9 competitions, but believes training for real deployments should be a priority. In 1989, Steve was shot and seriously wounded during a K-9 deployment and emphasizes the importance of selecting and training dogs for the reality of the street. Steve is currently working his 5th dog and has been involved in hundreds of K-9 use of force incidents during his career.

Adrian Centeno

Adrian Centeno was born in Mexico and graduated from the Mexican Federation

Dog Trainers Program in 1998. In 2001 he moved to the US and founded Southern California All Breed Ringers, one of the largest & most successful French ring dog training clubs in North America, and currently serves as the club’s Training Director.In addition to being a self-taught Level 2 French Ring decoy, Adrian has instructed several decoys to certification as well. Adrian also trains and maintains sporting dogs for Protection Sport of America (PSA), Mondio Ring, Schutzhund

and French Ring.Not only does Adrian understand and appreciate the technical differences and mind set of the "training" decoy versus the "trial" decoy, but he is also fluent in recognizing the decoys’ innate strengths and weaknesses with training equipment as well as civil training for police service dogs, and can help make adjustments with a discerning eye. His love for all animals is apparent in his handling and teaching style which he applies with a keen sense of awareness. Clear, correct, and safe work is always his priority for the dog, handler and decoy.

Rodney Spicer

Rodney Spicer is the owner and training director of Gold Coast K9. He is recognized nationwide for providing challenging reality based training scenarios and utilizing contemporary canine training techniques. Rodney began training working sport dogs in 1985 and soon after began training police service dogs in patrol and detection.

Rodney is directly involved in the selection and training of police service dogs in patrol, narcotic and explosive detection. Rodney enjoys the unique position of being a certified working dog judge in four different organizations and being a certified agitator in five different working dog organizations as well as a California K9 POST Evaluator. He also personally conducts over 300 detection sniffs per year. One of Rodney’s talents as a coach, trainer, handler and agitator is his uncanny ability to motivate, reward and finish even the toughest Police Service Dogs.  Rodney is continuously striving to improve the Dog Teams in his programs to be the best they possibly can be.

Rodney is also a noted author having 16 published articles regarding police service dogs in national K9 magazines as well as being a featured speaker to K9 handlers and administrators from over 32 states and 4 different countries.

Resume available upon request