June 30, 2025 

The AKC Patriotic Puppy Program is pleased to announce that Teal Knapp of Hightest Kennels in Oroville, CA is the PPP Participant Spotlight for the 2nd Quarter of 2025! We appreciate Teal and all the staff at Hightest Kennels for everything they do for the program and the future of the detection dog industry!

Jim & Teal Knapp purchased Hightest Kennels in 2018 to build on the tradition of quality training and breeding that Hightest has become renowned for. They have been successfully training and breeding Labrador Retrievers for many years for  the service dog industry, Obedience, Gun Dog, and Search and Rescue.  For the past few years, they have also been breeding and training for the AKC Patriotic Puppy Program.

Teal is a nationally recognized Senior Licensed Guide Dog Orientation and Mobility Instructor (GDOMI). She worked for Guide Dogs for the Blind for twenty-three years, training more than three thousand dogs for blind and visually impaired handlers. Jim is a retired agriculture teacher and operates the farming operation both at Hightest and on the family farm. Jim is an avid bird and big game hunter. He has trained his personal retrievers to hunt for more than thirty years. Jim and Teal found AKC’s Patriotic Puppy Program a few years ago and eagerly dove right in.

Hightest Kennels, Inc., placed their first Labrador Retriever, “Blinks”, at 8 months of age with Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center as a Narcotics Detection Canine. Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office then purchased “Goose”, another Narcotics Detection Canine to also work at Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center. Next came “Bailey”, Sutter County (CA) Sheriff’s Office first Jail Canine in the county’s history. Most recently, “Creed” was purchased by D-Tac K9 and is working at Folsom Dam as a Bomb Detection Canine.

Along with “Blinks”, “Goose”, “Bailey”, and “Creed”, Hightest Kennels, Inc., has placed Labradors from their breeding program with several other agencies and organizations and trainers.  This includes AKC Patriotic Puppy Participants such as Roxane & Kirt Dutson’s K&R Labradors, Debi Deshon’s Mussel Dogs, Interquest Detection Canines, and National Search Dog Foundation, to name a few.

AKC’s Patriotic Puppy Program has not only given Hightest Kennels, Inc., another avenue in which to give back to our communities and our country. Joining the network of PPP Participants and Mentors has also been a journey of joy and learning that AKC hopes will continue for years to come.

March 31, 2025

The Patriotic Puppy Program will highlight participants each quarter. The first spotlight of 2025 is Crystal Ernst!

Crystal Ernst began American K9s with the goal of providing more domestically bred detection dogs and supporting the safety and security of the United States by providing working dogs and the services they provide. The first dog American K9s sold was an AKC registered Labrador Retriever named Herald, whom Crystal certified on narcotics at 7 months old.

American K9s has partnered with other small AKC breeders as well as created their own breeding program. These puppies and the training program American K9s utilize has produced a great variety of graduates from the Patriotic Puppy Program. Some of the dogs are now working with the government, in law enforcement, on cruise ships, in schools and even at Disney World.

Four of Crystal’s Patriotic Puppy Program graduates were deployed to a metropolitan correctional system with a large drug overdose issue (pictured). American K9s trained these four young black labradors on traditional area searches, but also trained them to sniff out very small amounts of narcotics odors on inmates. Within the first year of the program, the four helped reduce the number of fatal overdoses by 23 from the prior year. Patriotic Puppies are saving lives!

The Patriotic Puppy Program has supported this small up and coming business through the network of like-minded dog lovers who share their successes and failures, help each other find solutions and new training tools, share opportunities for placements, and cheer each other on after deployments.

Crystal and her team at American K9s are so grateful to the AKC and the wonderful folks of the Patriotic Puppy Program and the opportunities and support they provide to help fill the need of working dogs in our communities.