This is the story of Wes and Dolly.
But before we dive into the dad-and-dog duo helping families across the Valley, you need to understand how one family's search for answers became their life's work.
"My little sister was having seizures. A lot of them. And nobody could tell us why."
It's a memory Wes will never forget.
"My parents did everything right," he says. "Doctors, specialists, test after test, thousands of dollars chasing answers that never came."
As his sister's health continued to decline, the symptoms only became more alarming. She battled seizures, severe depression, anxiety, brain fog, hair loss, and hormone issues.
Meanwhile, his mother's health was unraveling in ways doctors couldn't explain.
"My mom was dealing with a lot all at once," he says. "For a long time no one could tell her why."
Every specialist focused on the symptoms.
No one looked at the house.
Eventually, hidden mold was discovered inside his sister's bedroom. The contaminated materials were removed, and for a while, life seemed to return to normal.
Then everything came back.
"The actual water source was never fixed," Wes says. "The mold came back. She moved out for a bit, then moved back into that same room, and the severe reactions and depression came right back."
His family needed another answer.
That's when they hired a mold detection dog.
"The dog marked all the spots we'd been told were already fixed. They cut those areas open a second time, removed more, and that's when she finally started to improve."
Watching that dog work changed everything.
"My mom sent me a video of the dog marking right on the wall where the mold was, and I thought it was one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen."
But it wasn't just the dog's nose that stayed with him.
It was what happened after.
"So many people in this industry just put a piece of tape on the wall and walk away. No report, no evidence, just tear it open yourself or pay me to."
His sister recovered.
His family never recovered the certainty.
"To this day, my mom avoids the rooms that were remediated. When nobody gives you proof, you never stop wondering if it's really gone."
Looking back now, Wes wonders if mold had quietly been part of his own story long before anyone realized it.
"One home we lived in had a really bad basement with a sump pump," he says. "I struggled to gain weight, had bad eczema, constant strep throat, nosebleeds, and bad flaking in my hair. At the time nobody connected any of it. In hindsight, it makes you wonder."
That experience forever changed the way he sees families searching for answers.
"It gave me a real compassion for people living through it that I didn't have before, because like most people, I never thought about mold until my own family lived it."
Today, his mother sees purpose where there was once pain.
"My mom especially sees how many people I get to help now, and she knows helping people is simply who I am."
He smiles.
"That's really the whole thing for me."
That purpose became K9 Mold.
"If you're reading this because someone in your home is sick and no one can tell you why, that was us. That's exactly who K9 Mold was built for."
His partner just happens to have four legs.
Dolly is a Belgian Malinois, a breed known for its intelligence, relentless drive, and work ethic. To Wes, she's family. To homeowners, she's often the first step toward finding answers.
Years ago, a mold dog changed Wes's family's life.
Today, Dolly is doing the same for other families.
"To Dolly it's just a game," Wes says with a laugh. "She finds a certain smell, and she gets her ball. That's the whole job as far as she's concerned."
That ball is everything.
"I've never once seen Dolly unmotivated," he says. "Her ball is her whole world, and it lets us harness her drive to work hard every single time."
Dolly wasn't Wes's first dog. He originally trained with a dog named Mia, but she developed a genetic nerve disorder affecting her back legs.
"I ran inspections for about half a year without a dog. Then we found Dolly. We had a lot of dogs to choose from and just felt she was the right one."
It took six months to train her.
Dolly trained under Matt Skogen of IronHeart High Performance Dogs in Kansas, one of the country's most respected trainers of police, bomb detection, narcotics, and mold detection dogs. Wes continues her training using live mold samples grown across multiple species, ensuring she never becomes conditioned to detecting only one type.
"Dolly smells the VOCs, the gases that come off active mold, not the mold itself."
Those gases lead her to hidden water damage inside walls, ceilings, and floors that homeowners often have no idea exists.
While trained mold dogs are commonly cited around 90-95% accurate, Wes never wanted families relying on one tool alone.
Today, Wes is the only inspector in Arizona combining a certified mold detection dog, military-derived InstaScope air-analysis technology, and comprehensive written reporting into a single inspection. According to InstaScope, his operation is one of only two in the country using this unique approach.
"The InstaScope changes everything because it doesn't just tell us there's a problem. It tells us what's actually in the air," Wes says. "Most devices measure particles or VOCs, but this technology identifies mold, bacteria, and pollen, giving families a much clearer picture of what they're breathing."
As he walks through a home, families watch the readings change room by room in real time.
Then he layers those findings with Dolly's alerts and his own inspection.
"Each one is a separate point of data," Wes says. "My inspection, the InstaScope readings, and Dolly's nose. When you layer all three together, you get a very clear picture of where the issues are and what the next steps should be."
That commitment to evidence also explains why K9 Mold never performs remediation.
"It was important to never do remediation because I didn't want the conflict of interest," Wes says. "I want to be an agent for the client, giving honest answers, not making a problem bigger than it is so I can sell the fix."
He calls it proof over pressure.
Families deserve answers before anyone starts cutting into walls.
Sometimes, those answers reveal hidden mold.
Sometimes, they reveal there isn't a mold problem at all.
"I'd rather spend seven hours in a home, find nothing, and tell you honestly, 'I looked top to bottom, Dolly worked hard, the InstaScope is clean, there's no mold here,' than leave you with a pile of question marks."
Today, Wes is also the father of four.
"Honestly, it hits even harder now," he says. "With a newborn in the house, it scares me more because they're so small and so vulnerable."
If he could sit beside the younger version of himself watching his family search for answers, his advice would be simple.
"I'd tell him to trust his gut and not give up."
Then he pauses.
"When you're living in a home that's making your family sick and no one can give you answers, you start to wonder if you're imagining the whole thing."
"You're not."
"The answer is there."
"It's just hidden."
"And it's worth digging until you find it, because the relief on the other side is everything."
k9mold.com