I’ve been taking care of animals my entire life, and have been doing so professionally for 15 years. I’ve worked across the whole spectrum of doggie daycares and cat hotels, volunteered with therapeutic riding associations, worked for the farm zone at the PNE, been bitten by betta fish, and rescued injured wildlife. If you’re seeing this page you probably know me as one of the Mindful Mutts wranglers for the past couple years. :) I’m not great at talking about myself, especially not in a professional context, so I asked my internet friends what to put here and they suggested “dogs like me, fish want me”.

My childhood dogs were high-drive rescues—one a Pyrenees mix with severe dog reactivity, and the other a working border collie left behind by the previous homeowners. Their emotional lives, protectiveness over child-me, and mental quirks set me up for a lifetime of interest in the welfare of companion animals. Angel, the collie, would try to herd ATVs and semi trucks if given the chance; Riley the Pyr mix once bent his way through barn-side sheet metal to run away from fireworks. I spent most of my time outside with one or both dogs glued to me, exploring rural Oregon. Now I get the same sense of peace taking people’s dogs into the woods for a couple hours to show them cool bugs and new smells.

I graduated from the University of Victoria with a BA in (human) psychology and creative nonfiction in 2021. I specialized in social dimensions of stigma, paraphilia studies, and sexology. I also designed the logos in use for the dySEM R+ packages to analyze non-dyadic statistical relationships in sexual science! I can and will talk your ear off about specific figures in the history of psychology that I have one-sided beef with.

I am non-binary transgender and use they/them pronouns. E.g.: “They took my dog to the forest today. My dog had a lot of fun with them. I hope they remembered to bring water for themself and not just the dogs this time.”