About Nordi
K-9 Nordi is a five year old Jagd (pronounced Yock) Terrier imported from Germany. He is considered a German Sporting Dog. Upon arriving in the United States Scott and Tina purchased Nordi for the sole purpose of detecting bed bugs. Scott trained Nordi to detect bed bugs, and he is now certified through the National Emptamoligy Scent Detection Canine Association. K-9 Nordi certifies every year in Columbus, Ohio. K-9 Nordi has been working for over two years looking for bed bugs. He has searched boats, hotels, cars, houses, cabins, and luggage.
How does Nordi find bed bugs? K-9 Nordi finds bed bugs using his nose. We find bed bugs using our eyes. We have to see them, we can’t smell them. Nordi has no idea what a bed bug looks like, he only knows what they smell like.
K-9 Nordi has a threshold of finding 2 bed bugs to finding, we estimate over four-thousand bed bugs. Science is still unsure how the dogs nose works and how dogs can break down odors.
When working with dogs there are several terms or words that we use that are related to dogs. If you've taken one of our training classes you have heard these words before. The first word is Anamorphation: Anamorphation means putting our values on dogs. For example, to us, one thousand bed bugs smells greater than three bed bugs. We assume but don’t know if that is accurate to the dog. The second word is Preopostioning: where the dog positions itself in relation to finding odor. This is used more in training. The last word is Successive Approximation: taking little baby steps to achieve your goal. This too is more used in training than working.
Most dogs used to detect bed bugs are beagles or terriers. Most of these are food reward dogs. This means the dog is fed food when they locate bed bugs. K-9 Nordi is a toy reward dog. He gets fed twice a day no matter what. No false alerts because he is hungry.
We hope to increase the number of dogs to three in the near future. All of our dogs are trained under the same principals as the military and local law enforcement. If thinking of calling us to use K-9 Nordi we strongly encourage you to ask questions about the dog.
As in any profession you must know your equipment and how to use it. Our handlers can answer your dog related questions.
