Desert Sky K9

My pup went to the three week boarding and training. She was only about 15 weeks with a lot of energy and limited attention span. She was wonderfully trained and when I got her back after the three weeks she had better focus and obedience with commands. Everything wasn’t perfect since she was still just a puppy, but it was a GREAT way to start off her training. We had a real solid base to work off of. Now at one years old my pup not only has her CGC but is a trained and certified therapy dog! I know that her training at desert sky k9 was the best thing we could’ve done to start her off on the right “paw” for her future and more intense therapy dog training. Highly recommend!

We selected Desert Sky K9 not because of the reviews but instead after meeting both Gail and Mark we felt they had the facility, knowledge and experience to train a puppy to be a service dog. First and foremost, I did my research as to what dog breeds make the best quality service dogs and we selected a Golden Retriever puppy from a local breeder who had quality reviews with AKC. Going into this, what were our expectations? We would have a fully trained service dog after 6 weeks? We expected Mark to train a puppy into a dog which was ready to sit under a restaurant table for an hour? Not at this age! We brought in a puppy which nipped, jumped, and was a proverbial “bull in a china shop”. 6 weeks later, what do I have? I have a well tempered 6 month old Golden Retriever who is fully leashed trained, follows basic commands, and can stay in place on command. Is she ADA ready to take to the mall, hell NO. She is still a puppy which requires additional training to master the skills. It’s like asking a 8 year old kid to not be a kid. Mark gave us a trained dog who is ready to continue training and by us. This dog is for my kids who have disabilities and it does me no good to not have my kids training regularly with the dog. Mark and Gail have done nothing but accommodate us to accomplish these training sessions. We are extremely happy with the results we received and will continue our training sessions with them to allow our dog to master the skills. We never set into this thinking in 6 weeks your dog is going to be perfect. If you are one of those people who want someone to do all the work for you so you don’t have to, you may want to go a different route. This process requires the owners be involved and work with the trainer. We love Gail and Mark and thank them because they have already made an impact on our son who is quite engaged with our dog after being bitten by a different dog at an early age. Thank you and we will see you soon for another lesson.

I have written and rewritten this review just to delete it before hitting submit because I wasn't really sure how to put into words my sadness for the experience we had with Desert Sky.... we paid for our dog to be service dog trained for our special needs daughter. Needless to say he wasn't even close to being called that. We were shown his training skills and they included: place, sit, stay, heal. This does not meet the requirements of a service dog. At first I was VERY upset about the 3,500 dollars spent on that, then I began to think about the fact that we were not allowed to see our dog for 3 months (yes 3 months) during this training. He came back a very aggressive dog. I contacted Desert Sky to ask about his aggressive behaviors to others and was told he is just being protective of us. This is not what I expected or wanted from a service dog. I have had him assessed by certified service dog trainers and he was never properly trained. He was also 6 months old at the time of training which we were told by Desert Sky was not a problem, well it is, thats way too young according to the other trainers. We have now spent another 2,500 dollars in training to try and rectify this situation. I strongly belive that our dog was not trained in the manner in which we were promised and now has some underlying issues due to this process. I have thought about the money and asking for it to be returned since our dog was not given what we were promised, but now its about getting him back to being a happy dog. It is a joke to think that he was ever trained and ready to be a service dog for our daughter. His aggression is towards kids, adults, male, females. This was never a prpblem.before we sent him to Desert Sky. I cannot express enough how much this has hurt our wallet, hearts, and the absence or a service dog for our daughter. Please do research and dont ever give your dog to someone for training and not be able to see them for 3 months. I am heartbroken over this whole situation and could go on for days. I hope our family can repair the damage done.

My dog trained with Desert sky K-9 Mark and Gail, Very large dog puppy 150 lbs, and she is such a pleasure to walk now, she stays right beside me very pleasant, if she gets distracted, I just say pay attention and she stays calm. I can let her off the leash at a park, if she runs just a little away form me. I say here and she turns and comes to me instant as mark taught her. He is a great trainer... To have a dog well behaved with other people and mainly for me to take her for a walk and she respects our space and loves her walks now, no pulling or walking away chaseing anything she stays right beside me.