Tori Swan
Tori Swan has been in SAR over the last 19 years, but starting as a toddler, assisted her family in aerial SAR. She has been training dogs for 29 years, beginning at age 8 when she started training and running sled dogs. By 10 years old, she was training lion and bird hunting dogs for clients through her family’s outfitting business. At age 11, Tori began working horses for a neighboring ranch and at 16, accepted an offer to train cutting horses for a high end cutting and race horse farm in Dallas Texas. At age 18, she got her pilots license and officially joined a volunteer SAR Unit. While Tori attended honors college at Montana State University, she began an apprenticeship training mobility service dogs and within a couple years, joined Guide Dogs of America raising and training Seeing-Eye dogs for the blind. Prior to graduation, in 2010 Tori attended flight school and flew as a full time commercial helicopter pilot, heli logging, aerial sawing and for wildland fire while training dogs and deploying on missing person and criminal investigations as a K-9 Handler. In 2016, Tori started specializing in scent detection K-9s, to include Tracking/Trailing, Air Scent and Human Remains Detection (HRD). She has trained and handled hundreds of dogs of many different breeds and has a proven track record of coaching handler-canine teams in basic and advanced obedience, behavior issues, service and scent detection disciplines for sport and deployment with Law Enforcement. In 2021, Tori began working with a sheriffs office K-9 unit, training 6 days per week with dual purpose K-9s and responding to missions with the sheriffs office K-9 unit, tremendously advancing her knowledge of the working K-9 industry. Tori currently owns and handles a nationally certified scent detection K-9, Compass, a Border Collie, certified in trailing, live air scent, avalanche and HRD to a forensics level, and a dual purpose K-9, Fury, a Belgian Malinois, certified in HRD-Forensics and in-training for evidence, tracking and apprehension. Tori is the president of Search and Rescue K-9s of Idaho, (SARKI), a national K-9 resource and is a nationally certified handler, trainer and evaluator. She is also an evaluator for American Kennel Club and holds personal certifications with AKC, the Emergency Care and Safety Institute’s K9 Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and with K9TECC - Tactical Emergency Casualty Care. Tori was born and raised in Montana and has lived in Idaho the last few years. Her middle school aged son Tyler has followed in her footsteps and also trains and handles working K-9s in obedience and scent detection. She says he is one of her best training partners, showing incredible talent and ability. Tyler is planning to join the Coast Guard when he turns 18 to be a K-9 handler.
