MALS K9 Training & Sales

The update I did not want to make but here it is. TLDR: one year later I have paid for 4 dogs and none are trained. I am out thousands of dollars for nothing. I had to hire a new trainer. Duke is our problem child. He is a hound mix that is scared of everything. We found Mals in July of 2024 and felt like we struck the lottery as Mike told us that not only would he fix Duke’s confidence issues, which were apparently at the root of his aggression, but that because he was a hound, Mike would get him into tracking and scent training and that he would make a productive member of the household out of our troublemaker. This all sounded great. It all started great as well, with Mals using his heavy handed techniques to try to give Duke confidence. As Duke cleared obstacles, he started to get a small amount of confidence back. We knew this was a marathon, not a sprint, so we were okay with the progress. The problem came as Mike and his scheduling became increasingly erratic. We could see real progress when we received the consistent lessons that we paid for. Where it started to fall off was when Mike started cancelling sessions more consistently than he had them. We would try to move things around, to get Duke in so he didn’t slide backwards to no avail. To Mike’s credit, he initially carved out Saturdays just for us because we had multiple dogs in the program. That ended quickly as he decided to use Saturdays for something else. The same thing happened with Sundays. Then the scheduling stopped. We gave multiple options for our availability to no avail. Each time we were told “Lori will call you” but no call came. While Duke is Basic Certified, it is safe to say that much of his training and certainly his test was under duress as he retained none of it outside of the actual test. There were many instances where we questioned Mike’s methods, such as placing Duke in a group class despite our objections and having him completely shut down, or watching Mike drag Duke up an incline by his prong collar because he “can’t let Duke win” We trusted Mike, and we probably would have kept going to get Duke through the Master Training that we paid for had Mals not ghosted us. Luckily we were able to find a different trainer, with a vastly different methodology that has already started making huge strides. While we don’t begrudge Mals their methods, their “one size fits all” method of forcing dogs to comply in order to push them through their certifications feels a little too participation trophy to us. We would not recommend Mals for any dog training as, to be honest, our dogs were not trained. Maybe Mike is just not good with hounds. Maybe he’s not good with rescue dogs. Regardless, when you market yourself as both of those things and fail to deliver, it’s hard for us to recommend you to anyone.

Mals offers a friendly, welcoming environment for dogs and humans of all ages. I have a senior dog with numerous behavior issues, that Mals K9 is helping me with. I appreciate that they work with older dogs along with the younger ones. Also their Environmental Tactical Awareness Class was very thorough and fun. Learned a lot about gun safety and the correct way to handle a pistol. Everything was professional and the top priority was safety. I highly recommend Mals K9 for basic or master obedience along with their firearm classes.

My daughter and I took MALS environmental tactical awareness course this past May. We both enjoyed every minute of it. Mike went over safety that morning in the class room and made sure everyone was ready before we went to the range. The safety of all in the class was his main priority. My daughter had never fired a handgun before, she was familiar with shotguns and riffles, but not a pistol and by the end of the training she was hitting the targets and had so much confidence thanks to Mike and his team. I would definitely recommend this training or any other training offered by Mike and his wife, Lorrie. My daughter‘s year old German Shepherd has been training for a few months now with Mike, she was wild and did not listen and I thought she was a lost cause, with Mikes continuous work and dedication to her and her training she is improving tremendously.