Our Experience

Family Dog’s specialty is helping the family dog in a variety of areas and is performed as full-time employment by Val Klein. Our core classes focus on teaching good solid social skills to puppies & dogs, making them good family members. These classes can carry training up to many levels, and our crew of teachers has many Obedience, Rally, Conformation, Agility, Hunting, and other titles.

Val has had over 39 years of experience training dogs at many levels. She started showing her first dog, Lucy, a Doberman in the late 1980s. Over the years, many dog breeds have shared her home with her, including German Shepherds, Malinois, Labs, German Shorthair Pointers, Samoyeds, Cairn Terriers, and many lovely mixed breeds as well.

Along with owning many dogs, Val has performed house calls for 1000’s of clients over a 30-year span. She has had training sessions for everything from unruly puppies, behaviorally challenged dogs, rescues with difficulties, consults before a family brings home a puppy or dog, housebreaking help, and sometimes just a good basic start on house manners and obedience. Up until COVID, there were house call clients that had been training regularly with Val, for 15+ years, because they enjoyed the training that much!

*With the purchase of the training center, house calls have been replaced with Private lessons at the training center.

Val has worked in many other aspects of the dog business as well. This includes dog kennels with board and train services, consulting services for shelters & breed rescues, working with assisted living facilities with “staff dogs”, grooming shops, and advice given to kennels/dog daycares creating safer dog facilities.  Her services have also been utilized by attorneys when dog circumstances are a part of the case, whether it be abuse, neglect, or aggression situations.