Our story…
how I ended up in the deep end
Before Mako and Maze, there were Dmitri and Vladimir.
Two German Shepherds, brothers actually. No specialized training. Not even obedience. And somehow, two of the best dogs we could have asked for. Vladimir was my dog in every possible sense of the word. My husband had Dmitri. We used to joke that Vladimir spent most of his days plotting my husband’s demise so he and I could finally have the house to ourselves. If my husband tried to leave in the truck without Dmitiri, he would body-slam the door as if betrayal of that magnitude simply could not be tolerated. They were perfect.
When we lost Vladimir shortly after his tenth birthday to a mast cell tumor, I said I was done.
No more dogs - but, if somehow there ever was another dog, absolutely never another German Shepherd. Losing him hurt too much.
Then life changed.
After losing more than 100 pounds, I found myself dealing with attention I wasn’t prepared for. After more than one situation left me feeling genuinely unsafe, my husband suggested I start carrying concealed. I wasn’t comfortable with that. I also wasn’t comfortable going places alone anymore.
His response was simple: If you won’t carry a gun, at least take a dog.
A German Shepherd was out of the question. Then he said the words that somehow changed everything: “What about a Belgian Malinois?”
My response: Absolutely not. Everything I knew about Malinois came from working dogs and the horror stories I’d read online. High drive. Difficult. Intense. Muzzles. Aggressive.
But, to make him happy, I researched. And researched some more.
Eventually I agreed on one condition: if we ever brought one home, professional training would begin immediately - no exceptions. He agreed. My hope was if we could at least have him obedience trained to just behave, then just having a Malinois would be protection enough - not train him to protect. At least that was my logic.
Before I knew it, we had Mako’s training arranged before we even had Mako.
Then we heard about a remaining puppy that nobody seemed to want. He was the runt of the litter and had a broken tail. That hit a familiar nerve.
Years earlier, Dmitri had also been the puppy nobody wanted. And not long before this, we’d taken in Sasha, a German Shepherd who had survived abuse, gone through three homes, and was headed toward euthanasia when she came to us. So when we heard about Mako, we knew.
We went and got him.
On the drive, I was already on the phone with his new trainer getting homework assignments before we’d even gotten him home. Training started that weekend. And that’s when I learned lesson number one: Mako wasn’t the one who needed the most training. I was.
I started realizing how much dogs are capable of when the human on the other end of the leash learns how to communicate with them. Especially with our handler’s favorite line, “There’s no such thing as a bad dog - only bad handlers”. That training included a lot of tears on my part and I’m sure I quit a thousand times. But, Mako? He would just look up at me - like “we got this”. Then we continued - tears and all.
One yes led to another.
Yes to Mako.
Yes to basic training.
Yes to advanced obedience.
Yes to personal protection work — something I wasn’t sure I would ever be comfortable with.
Then once our world felt stable - we lost Dmitri. Everything crumbled again. Hearts devastated.
And less than a year later, we said yes all over again.
This time to Mazikeen - Mako’s biological sister. However, this time our trainer and my Husband went to pick my husband’s little girl and he wanted a feisty one. Oh he got one, and I feel we tempted fate with her name - as this yes was another deep end jump.
Every time I said “yes” it felt the same to me.
Jumping into the deep end of the water, that I had absolutely no business being in.
The Deep End.
And every time, I had the fear likes sharks circling.
What I didn’t understand then was that this fear was not that I was going to be hurt.
It was the bond getting deeper.
The dogs I once feared - were becoming the ones I trusted to protect me. That bond is what made that possible.
Today, Mako is trained through Level III obedience and as a personal protection K9. And somewhere along the way, me - the one that feared this breed has have had another full-circle moment.
Our trainer once said that if someone truly wanted to hurt me, one of the first things they would do is hurt Mako - or worse.
My immediate response to my husband was:
“I want to get my conceal carry license - I need to be able to protect Mako.”
He just laughed and smiled. He said, “Let me get this straight, we got the Dog because you didn’t want to carry. But, now you want to carry because of the dog?”
Full circle - all over again. And that is more or less how we ended up here - deep in the mayhem.
Two Malinois, a rescue German Shepherd, anew lessons learned, and a life with this powerful breed we never planned.
We jumped into the deep end.
Turns out, we belonged there all along.
Swimming with the sharks.
Welcome to the mayhem - we’re so happy you’re here.