Daily Inspiration: Meet Sonja Nordstrom

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sonja Nordstrom. 

Hi Sonja, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Great Basin K-9 Search and Rescue, an all-volunteer non-profit 501(c)(3), was started in the Ogden Valley in 2008. We now operate out of both Weber and Summit Counties, responding to search and rescue/recovery requests throughout the Intermountain West. During my time as lead trainer, current President, and former Training Officer, we have evolved the team and grown to include operational members in Summit, Weber, Morgan, and Salt Lake Counties. Our mission is to train K9 SAR teams and certify them to the highest standards in order to provide K9 SAR services—at no charge—to public safety organizations. Our all-volunteer members come from a variety of backgrounds to include former military, law enforcement, business professionals, and outdoor enthusiasts. What we all have in common is a dedication to mission and desire to help others. 

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Being a member of a K9 SAR team requires not only extensive K9 training but also that the handler is fully SAR trained. When working with K9s, there are inherent changes based on the limited lifetime of dogs. We most often start with pups that can take up to two years to become operational with regular training. During that initial training time, we sometimes learn that some dogs are not suitable for the work or they have health issues that were not otherwise foreseeable. Once a dog becomes operational, training continues weekly throughout the working lifetime of the dog. If we are fortunate, we hope for a good 6-8 years of working lifetime. A dog’s working lifetime goes through an evolution of untrained to trained and operational certified to inexperienced operational to working prime of life. The last phase, when the “perfect” and experienced operational dog ages, is the most heartbreaking for K9’s human partner and team. The older dog knows the job and loves it, has the heart and mind for it, but the body just can’t keep up. When it is time to retire a dog, some members start training a new pup while others call it a day. 

Another challenge is the expense. We have no paid staff and rely completely on donations to support our mission. Donations are used for partial reimbursement for expenses to respond to searches, specific K9 training seminars, and equipment to include radios, uniforms, and dog GPS tracking collars. Our members pay all costs associated with the care of their K9s and most of their SAR and K9 equipment. We joke that K9 SAR is an unpaid and expensive full-time volunteer job ~ a labor of love by people who love working with dogs and who want to help their community. 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My journey in K9 SAR started in 1995 when I was working as a Special Agent with the FBI. My first dog, a collie mix, was a wonderful pet but just didn’t make the cut. I then had the good fortune to team up with a police K9 group in Los Angeles County, got a wonderful working line German Shepherd, and ultimately certified with the California Rescue Dog Association (CARDA) and California Office of Emergency Services. As Special Agent working violent crimes investigations and a member of the FBI Los Angeles Evidence Response Team, I was able to deploy with my dogs in both a professional capacity with the FBI and as a volunteer for non-criminal matters. Deployments included responding to the Pentagon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, to two California mudslides, and throughout the Western US on homicide and kidnap matters. A K9 career highlight was traveling to Europe on four occasions with one of my dogs to assist in searches to recover MIA soldiers from WWII. 

I retired from the FBI in 2014 after 23 years of service but continued working with K9 SAR and also opened K9 training businesses specializing in personal protection dogs and odor detection work for police, SAR, and sport. I am currently working with my fifth operational Search and Recovery K9, a 5-year-old Dutch Shepherd. I also recently became qualified as a Utah POST (Police Officer Standards and Training) Detector K9 Judge of explosives, narcotics, and cadaver dogs. 

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk-taking.
My work in both Law Enforcement and Search and Rescue is, by definition, high-risk. As such, I have the training and experience to assess, predict, and minimize potential risk. One can never avoid risk altogether, but preparation, precision training, and practice are essential to mitigating risk. 

Contact Info:

• Website: www.greatbasink-9sar.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/gbk9sar/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gbk9sar