Professional milestones:

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2002 - 2010: I studied veterinary medicine in Munich, Germany and graduated in 2008. I then spent a few years at the Clinic for Ruminants (Oberschleissheim, Germany) which is part of the Munich campus, to write my doctoral thesis on lameness in dairy cattle. During this time I got to take part in daily tasks in the clinic including treating cattle and ruminant patients and teaching students.

 

2009 - 2013: I worked as dairy veterinarian on small (1 cow) to larger (400 cows) farms in Southern and Northern Germany. We covered calf health (including drip infusions, surgeries, casts for broken legs) and cow health, lameness and reproductive services. In both practices that I worked in, the well-being of animals was important to the whole team and pain management was always an important part of the picture (sadly not a given in farm animals).

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2013 - 2021: I completed my PhD with the Animal Welfare Program at UBC, BC, Canada, in 2019 and have since worked with the program on and off as postgraduate research fellow. My research focus during my PhD was on cow welfare during the transition period (the time around calving), but has since changed to positive reinforcement training for dairy cows. With this experience I truly embraced that animal well-being goes beyond physical health and a pain-free life even though both of these aspects are of course important. 

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Since 2017: Not that I had never thought or heard about animal training before but it moved more into my focus in 2017 when I attended Dr Susan Friedman's Living and Learning with Animals online course. I'm hooked ever since, worked for a dog trainer in the Vancouver area, did contracted work for the BC SPCA AnimalKind accreditation program and founded my own dog training business (Neighborhound Dog Training) in 2020.