Hi Loving Furparents, My lifelong passion is interspecies communication, animal care & behavior, ecology, and environmental conservation. I have grown up communicating, training/learning, caretaking, and translating for animals my entire life, and I continue to follow my passion for animal care, rehabilitation, conservation, and helping others learn to listen and communicate with animals. I have recently lost my soul dog and partner of nearly 16 years to osteosarcoma. I have experience learning life lessons our senior friends teach us; to slow down, smell the wildflowers, enjoy the little things in life, lead with empathy, lend a helping hand to one another, and be grateful for the moment we have together. I have experience with caretaking during mobility issues for both animals, using help-em-up harnesses and wheelchairs. Additionally, I have awareness and understanding of training needs when the human is afflicted with chronic illness and mobility impairments, such as helping the animal to learn and be mindful of unsteadiness, fall prevention, etc. My current SDiT and I are working on counterbalance, DPT, crowd guarding, behavior interruptions, and some preliminary scent work. Additional Background of Experience; I grew up in the area with a variety of species throughout the years, from cats & dogs to horses, rodents, fish, chickens & guinea fowl to turtles, etc. This experience came with interspecies management, learning to hand-rear animals, helping animals learn core life skills, assess and rehab injury, hospice care, etc. Later, I completed a multidisciplinary degree from WVU with concentrations in Wildlife Management and Conservation Ecology. At WVU, I completed curriculum including a Service Dog Training course where the dog I worked with (Gretel) graduated the following year to become a certified therapy dog at Chestnut Ridge. Additional courses included Animal Behavior, Equine Hoof and Limb, Equine Assisted Therapy, and Exotic Animal Medicine, among others. Since graduating, I have compiled formal experience working with both domestic animals, wildlife and protection of their habitat. I had the privilege to work abroad in Botswana, Africa at game reserves where we were able to rehabilitate animals, provide game drives, supplemental feeding etc., and interned at Mokolodi Nature Reserve in Botswana, Africa, caring for animals in rehabilitation.