K9S TRAINING TEAM MEMBER

MIKE LILLEY

At a very early age, Mike developed a deeply ingrained love for dogs and the training that went into making them operational. His father would have 15 to 20 hunting dogs in their kennels at any given time along with multiple litters of puppies. Mike and his younger brother were tasked with taking care of the dogs everyday which taught him early on how to properly tend to the needs of the animals. As Mike grew older, his love for raising and training dogs flooded over into his own line of dogs. Throughout the years, Mike has worked with many talented trainers where he gained a wealth of knowledge which he put into training countless working dogs.

Mike became a State Law Enforcement Officer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) at the age of 24. During his career with FWC, he was voted Officer of the Year for his region and also the NWTF Officer of the Year. He was a member of the FWC Special Operations Group (SOG) as well as a founding member of FWC's Resource Protection Unit (RPU). After a few years, Mike went through FWC's interview and rigorous physical assessment in order to become a member of the FWC K9 program. He was ultimately selected where he was partnered with his first K9 partner, K9 Roscoe. After completing a seven-month K9 school, Mike and K9 Roscoe went back to their respective region certified in tracking, article recovery and fish and game detection through NAPWDA. Mike and K9 Roscoe were responsible for countless arrests along with assisting other agencies in the recovery of crucial pieces of evidence that would have otherwise gone undetected allowing dangerous criminals to walk the streets.

After a couple of years, Mike decided to capitalize on an opportunity to work a dual-purpose patrol dog with the Hendry County Sheriff's Office (HCSO). Mike travelled to Royal Police Dogs in Tallahassee where he tested several candidates but ultimately selected a 10-month-old Belgian Malinois named “Neko”. Mike and K9 Neko attended their patrol school with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office K9 Unit (PBSO.) After completing over 800 hours of training, Mike and K9 Neko certified in Patrol, Tracking and Narcotics detection through FLECA. Mike was invited back to PBSO where he assisted with instructing a large K9 school with teams from multiple agencies. After completing almost two years training, he was given his Police K9 Trainer's certification.

Mike officially became a professional dog trainer in 2016 and was promoted to Sargent over the K9 Unit. Soon after, he had successfully trained multiple police K9's for his agency along with assisting other agencies with problem solving issues in order to take their K9 Unit to the next level. Mike and his wife, Suzi, opened their pet training business, New Age K-9 Services, where they helped many pet dog owners restore their relationship with their furry family members. Mike and Suzi moved to Knoxville, Tennessee two years ago and opened a dog training business, MLK9, to better serve clients with the best training possible. Mike works with pet dogs in basic and advanced obedience along with civilian scent detection and law enforcement K9s. He also is an instructor for K9s United providing modern training techniques to agencies in need across the United States. Additionally, Mike is a Silver School graduate under the teaching of Bart and Michael Bellon. He will attend Gold School in March of 2022.

The training techniques that Mike uses are ever evolving which gives the client and their dogs a plethora of tools and techniques to make their relationship rock solid for a lifetime.