What We Do

Elizabeth Norton ​​is a recently retired California prosecutor, having served for over 26 years of her 30 year career. Her last position prior to retirement was as a Supervising Deputy District Attorney. In addition to running a felony team of prosecutors, she was personally assigned to gang and homicide cases. Elizabeth has handled virtually every type of criminal case, including taking two cold homicide cases to murder verdicts with no forensic evidence or recovered murder weapon. In addition, Elizabeth is an expert in narcotics cases, particularly in marijuana and BHO cases.

Elizabeth is a sought-after instructor in many subjects. She has taught courses at Cal Northern School of Law, College of the Redwoods, Redwoods Academy (POST Academy) and has provided training in Criminal Law, Search and Seizure, Courtroom Presentation and K9 Law to prosecutors, law enforcement officers and probation officers. She has also given presentations to community members regarding sexual assault and domestic violence.

Elizabeth believes in giving back to the community and has served on many community boards and committees. From 2008 to 2018, Elizabeth coached the Las Plumas High School Mock Trial Team through county and state competitions. She has participated in Teen Court, Reality Check, and Every 15 Minutes, all criminal justice programs for teenagers. Her peers have recognized her dedication to excellence; she is the recipient of many awards from the community and from her peers in law enforcement.

Elizabeth is now the editor of Meyer’s K9 Law (meyersk9law.com), a legal website dedicated to keeping handlers, supervisors and policy makers up to date regarding the use of Police Service Dogs. Each month, Elizabeth reviews current PSD cases and cases which affect PSD teams from around the country and reviews and comments on those cases.

Garrett Snyder has been a police officer at a large Law Enforcement agency in California for 14 years. Garrett started his Law Enforcement career working patrol in the Salinas/Monterey area. Garrett spent the majority of his first 2 years as a motor officer. In addition to regular patrol duties, Garrett was selected and served on the area’s Protective Services Detail (PSD). Garett participated in numerous motorcades and escorts and assisted in site security for multiple dignitaries including Governor Schwarzenegger and the First Lady. Garrett also worked gang enforcement details with the Salinas Police Department Violence Suppression Unit (VSU) and Gang Task Force (GTF) and participated in patrol details for the Hells Angels Hollister/Gilroy rally.

Garrett transferred to Trinity County where he has worked patrol for the last 12 years. During his time in Trinity County, Garrett has been recognized by his Department for his proactive efforts in highway drug trafficking interdiction, with thousands of pounds of narcotics seized and hundreds of thousands of dollars of U.S. currency seized through traffic enforcement. Garrett works closely with allied agencies in Trinity County and has provided guidance and assisted as lethal cover for canine handlers during numerous tracking/trailing deployments through rough forest terrain, resulting in successful apprehension of violent and sometimes armed fleeing felons.

Garrett began working with canines while volunteering as a decoy for the Trinity County Sheriff’s Department. Garrett was invited to, and attended, a Decoy/Agitators class held by a large canine company. At the conclusion of the class, Garrett was offered a regional decoy job by the company. Garrett worked for the company as a regional decoy for 2 years, training with many different Law Enforcement agencies and canine trainers throughout California. Garrett assisted Brad Meyer in forming Meyer’s Police Canine Training and continues to work with Brad. Garrett has been invited to decoy in numerous police canine trials, including WSPCA. Garrett takes pride in building strong working dogs and regularly makes himself available to assist handlers with demonstrations for schools, police academies, public events, and fund raisers.

Brian Peterson Brian Peterson has been training dogs for more than 30 years and is currently the lead trainer for our Basic Handler Course. But it wasn't until he was introduced to the world of working dogs in 1993 when, acquiring a puppy out of the top scoring US protection dog at the World Shutzhund Championships, did he become addicted to protection sports. Since then he has trained for and competed in Shutzhund/IGP and Working Dogs of America (WDA) trials, earning top honors at events around the country. He has studied with many of the top protection sports trainers in the US and Europe, along with attending Police K9 seminars and conferences to further develop his skills as a K9 trainer and instructor.

Brian is the current President of Working Dogs of America, a WDA certified trainer and trial decoy/helper, a Shutzhund/IGP certified trial helper, an AKC canine evaluator and an WDA obedience, tracking and protection judge. He is also a member in good standing with the International Association of Canine Professionals. As a canine behaviorist, Brian is committed to balancing the latest operant and classical conditioning strategies with time-tested training methods to get the most reliable obedience and controlled aggression performance out of each K9 team.

Behr Tharsing is currently a Patrol Commander for Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Department.  He has been with the Sheriff’s Department for over 23 years.  Behr has handled two crossed trained police canines (patrol and narcotics).  He is currently working a crossed trained canine for the last 4 years.  Behr is part of SRT (special response team) and serves as the Manager/Commander.  He also oversees the Department’s Canine program, EOD, SAR (Search and rescue) and the Dive Recovery Team.  Prior to law enforcement Behr was an Intelligence Specialist in the United States Navy.  In 2019 Behr was selected to attend and graduated from the FBI-National Academy.

During Behr’s years of patrol work he was a K9 Handler as a Deputy, Sergeant and now Lieutenant.  He has also trained with numerous canine companies and agencies from all over the state.  He has participated in interdiction which has led to many successful narcotic and cash seizures.  He oversees his departments yearly interdiction enforcement team as well.  He has participated in numerous operations where he and his K9 short haul into remote locations and eradicate marijuana on public and private lands.

Behr has worked with Brad as a regional canine trainer at the same large company for several years, where they trained several Law Enforcement Agencies and conducted monthly trainings as well as yearly certifications.

Jaret has been working with dogs his whole life. He grew up around hunting dogs and seeing them hunt their way through fields, he knew he would want to work dogs later in life. He has always had a passion in the dog world. He started his police k9 work in 2015. Jaret was volunteering with a local Police Department decoying for their dogs for a year. He then got offered a job at Meyer’s Police K9 as a decoy. He has worked over a hundred dogs in the years throughout northern California. He takes pride in his work and strives to make the handler and k9 a better team by the end of the day. He holds high expectations for the handlers and k9’s because he knows the work ethic they are capable of. He has been invited to different dog trials around the area to decoy such as WSPCA. Jaret hopes to go into law enforcement and run a dog of his own someday.