Our Trainers
Gail McCarthy
Gail originally moved to Massachusetts to go to law school. It was here that her training interests shifted from riding horses to working with search and rescue dogs. Over the past 28 years, she has attended numerous detection dog workshops and seminars in her quest to learn the best approach for training independent, focused, reliable, and efficient detection dogs. During this time period, Gail has worked with hundreds of dogs, many of which have achieved the top accomplishments in their chosen detection dog venue.
Here is a list of Gail's accomplishments:
- Rode Hunter/Jumper horses and Three-Day Eventing horses professionally for many years.
- Gave horseback riding lessons up through the advanced levels in dressage and in eventing.
- Started working with search and rescue dogs in 1992.
- Attended over 200 workshops and seminars from some of the most preeminent detection dog trainers in the country.
- Trained and certified 3 dogs as wilderness live find search dogs; two dogs to the State Advanced Level.
- Trained and certified 1 dog twice at the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Advanced Level Live Find Disaster Dog Evaluation.
- Trained and certified 1 dog twice to the State Advanced Level in Human Remains Detection.
- Founder and former Training Director for the Massachusetts Canine Response Team and the Massachusetts Rescue & Recovery K9 Unit.
- Founder and former Chairperson and Canine Evaluator with the Massachusetts State Search and Rescue Federation.
- Canine Handler with the FEMA's Urban Search and Rescue, Massachusetts Task Force 1 beginning in 1994.
- FEMA Lead Live Find Disaster Dog Evaluator and a FEMA Human Remains Detection Evaluator.
- Worked with numerous search and rescue dogs over the years and freely shared her knowledge and experience with other canine handlers.
- Awarded a "Massachusetts State Senate Citation" by the Massachusetts State Senate in recognition of her consistent dedication to the promotion of volunteer canine search and rescue in Massachusetts.
- Instructed at most of the K9 Nose Work™ Training Camps held in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Colorado, and Oregon.
- Serves as a NACSW Faculty Member and NACSW Judge for NACSW sanctioned K9 Nose Work™ Competition Trials.
- Teaching K9 Nose Work™ classes for over 12 years and brings her past training experience to her students, many of whom now are among New England's top title holders in K9 Nose Work™.
- Is the instructor of 19 canine teams who have obtained their NW3 Elite Titles, and 6 of these students have achieved the coveted Elite Championship Title!!
- Please see the "Accolades Page" of Gail's personal website, www.scentinelnosework.com, for a listing of Gail's other students' successes in K9 Nose Work™.
Tracey Costa
Tracey is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer - Knowledge Assessed (CPDT-KA) and a Certified Nose Work Instructor (CNWI). She decided to leave the corporate world to raise her family and subsequently began teaching environmental programs to elementary and middle school children. Around the same time, her interest in the science behind dog training was piqued, and her love of Nose Work soon followed. She has attended many dog training seminars, as well as multiple K9 Nose Work camps.
She is the former vice president of the West Highland White Terrier Club of New England and continues to sit on the board today. Tracey is an approved AKC Canine Good Citizen Evaluator and is certified in pet CPR and First Aid. Her dogs are both Canine Good Citizens and retired Therapy Dogs (TDI). Her dog, Maisie, is the first Westie to have earned the K9 Nose Work titles: NW1, NW3, NW3, Elite, and Elite 2. Tracey is an advocate for humane and force-free dog training.
Janice Ritter
Janice is the co-founder of German Shepherd Rescue of New England (GSRNE) and was the director of the GSRNE Foster Family program for over a decade. She has an acute sense of how to work with rescue dogs and their new owners, as well as working with dogs purchased from breeders and from other sources. She and her German Shepherds earned top honors at every titling level of every sport they worked in and reached national levels of competition in AKC Obedience and Schutzhund.
