K9 Keva Wins 2025 AKC Award for Canine Excellence (ACE) – Uniformed Services K-9 Division
We are beyond proud to share the AKC announcement that K9 Keva and Dep. Gabe Jasso of San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Dept. CA have won the 2025 AKC Award for Canine Excellence (ACE) in the Uniformed Services K-9 Division! This is the second time a Scent Evidence K9 trained Bloodhound has won the prestigious award. K9 Stella won the award in 2020. View the AKC announcement below.
Inspiring Dogs Honored With 2025 AKC Awards for Canine Excellence
Human scent discriminate trailing AKC Bloodhound, Keva, is 3 years old and a highly productive member of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department K9 Unit. Keva and handler Deputy Gabriel Jasso have an amazing 48 missing person recoveries and criminal suspect locations in just 2+ years on the job. Keva was only 8 months old when she located an 83-year-old missing person with dementia on her very first search deployment after completing training with Scent Evidence K9 in Tallahassee. The man had wandered away and been missing for 18 hours. Keva racked up 7 successful K9 searches at only 9 months old. Dep. Jasso and Keva have also worked cases for several police departments and law enforcement agencies in Southern California. Learn more about K9 Keva HERE
Keva has exceptional drive and handles the high temps with ease during hard surface, urban deployments. Keva is a literal lifesaver. During the last week of May 2025, Keva and Dep. Jasso had 4 missing person deployments and located a missing 5-year-old on National Missing Children’s Day, 2 elderly missing persons, and one adult with autism. One of the elderly people wandered due to the onset of dementia and the other was 85 years old and had fallen into a ravine and couldn’t get up. Temps topped 103 degrees during that search and the man had been missing for 3 hours when they deployed. Every minute counted. Keva quickly trailed .5 miles to find the missing man and after a medical check, he was reunited with his family. Keva has located 23 missing adults and children, including many with dementia, autism, and cognitive disabilities who are at high risk of wandering. More Keva Trailing Stories HERE.
Keva is also an essential resource for locating criminal suspects and has 23 successful deployments. Keva has located arson suspects, evidence in armed robbery cases, and burglary suspects. The California Bloodhound earned the nickname “Fastest Nose In The West” when she located a stolen vehicle suspect who bailed out in only 1 minute. On 8/22/22, Keva deployed to search for a Wells Fargo bank robbery suspect who had passed a note to the teller asking for small bills and no dye packs. Keva used the note as a scent article and quickly trailed and located the suspect on the street. That same day, the California Bloodhound team deployed and located a missing endangered 13-year-old. Whether it’s locating hit and run suspects or a 100-year-old woman who wandered miles from her home, it’s all in a day’s work for Keva.
Keva and Dep. Jasso constantly train to improve their scent discriminate trailing capabilities. They utilize innovative scent collection technology to collect uncontaminated scent articles that not only help find missing persons faster but also preserves evidence in forensic deployments. Keva serves the San Bernardino County community by saving the lives of children and vulnerable adults who have wandered or gone missing. She also serves the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and their surrounding agency partnerships by helping to locate criminal suspects.
Scent Evidence K9 is proud to have trained Keva and Dep. Jasso and honored to play a role in their achievement. We look forward to following their continuing journey for trailing success.
