How We began:
My story with dogs began when I was 12 years old, working at a local animal shelter in Montana. That experience sparked a lifelong interest in dogs and their behavior. I learned early that every dog has a story, and sometimes the dogs that need us the most are the ones who have been through the most.
In my early 20s, I started training my own dog to become a hunting dog. I spent countless hours learning about training, communication, motivation, and what it takes to build a reliable working partnership with a dog.
Then life happened.
I got married, had kids, had dogs, and built a career in law enforcement. Dogs were always part of my life, but training remained something I loved rather than something I did professionally.
Then came 2020. I contracted COVID before we really understood what COVID was. I was sick for months. It affected my entire body and eventually settled in my lungs.
I was one of the fortunate ones who survived.
But surviving COVID was only the beginning. In October of 2020, my body had enough. I was desperately trying to claw my way back to health when my left leg suddenly stopped working. By the next day, I had lost the use of both legs and was admitted to the hospital. That began a very long battle with Long COVID.
My symptoms mimicked a stroke. I lost my speech. I became confused. I experienced seizures. I couldn't walk, and sometimes I couldn't move my arms either. My body shook uncontrollably. My lungs slowly began to heal, but the rest of my body didn't.
For 3½ years, I lived in a wheelchair. I had to learn how to function in a completely different world. Things I had once taken for granted became challenges. My life changed in ways I never could have imagined.
Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I found Basil.
Basil was a rescue dog, and she became my partner through one of the hardest chapters of my life. She went everywhere with me. We learned how to navigate this new life together. Then Basil began alerting me to my seizures. That changed everything.
I enrolled in a service dog training course, and together Basil and I learned about service dogs, task training, public access, communication, and how a dog can become so much more than a pet. Basil became my teacher in ways I never expected. While I was learning about service dogs, I continued taking classes and expanding my knowledge of dog training, behavior, and the rehabilitation of aggressive and reactive dogs.
Then, in January 2024, I started working with rescue dogs again. That year, I fostered 14 different dogs.
Along the way, something unexpected happened. The dogs rewired my brain. Working with them seemed to help my brain and my legs communicate again. Slowly, painfully, I started taking steps. First, I used a walker. Then I progressed to a cane. Eventually, I was able to put those things away and walk on my own again.
I will never take that ability for granted. My illness is still part of my life, and I still have flare-ups and periods when walking and everyday activities become difficult. But I know what it feels like to lose the ability to walk, and I know what it feels like to get it back.
That experience changed the way I look at progress. Progress doesn't always happen quickly. Sometimes it happens one tiny step at a time. I deliberately took on difficult rescue cases—dogs carrying fear, trauma, reactivity, and sometimes aggression from their pasts. I worked with them to rebuild trust, learn how to communicate, and eventually become dogs that could live successfully in a family.
Something started happening along the way. People began asking me to train their dogs. Friends asked. Family asked. Then friends of friends started asking. I realized that something I had been doing my entire life—learning about dogs and helping them—was becoming something much bigger.
On April 20, 2024, Ashwood Dog Training was born.
Since then, I've had the privilege of working with an incredible variety of dogs and their people. I've worked with family pets who simply needed better communication and obedience. I've worked with reactive and aggressive dogs that needed someone willing to look beyond the behavior and figure out what was driving it. I've helped anxious and fearful dogs build confidence. I've worked with service dogs and their owners. I've even had the incredible privilege of preparing a service dog to leave the United States and join their owner in England.
Every dog has taught me something. Every client has taught me something. And I am still learning. I continue to take classes, study behavior, learn new techniques, and challenge what I think I know. Because dog training isn't something you ever truly finish learning.
My journey—from a 12-year-old kid working in an animal shelter in Montana, to training hunting dogs, to law enforcement, to spending 3½ years in a wheelchair, to learning how to navigate life with a service dog, to fostering rescue dogs, and finally to building Ashwood Dog Training—was never something I planned. But looking back, every chapter makes sense. The shelter taught me to care about the dog in front of me. Training my own dogs taught me patience and communication. Law enforcement taught me to remain calm in difficult situations. My experience with disability taught me what it means to struggle, adapt, and keep going. Basil taught me what a dog is truly capable of giving to a person. The rescue dogs taught me that even dogs who have been through terrible things can learn to trust again. And they taught me something else: Sometimes helping a dog heal can help heal you, too. All of it brought me here.
Today, Ashwood Dog Training is about more than obedience. It's about helping dogs and people understand one another. It's about giving difficult dogs a chance. It's about helping owners who feel overwhelmed realize that they aren't failing and their dog isn't broken. It's about building confidence, communication, and trust. And most of all, it's about keeping dogs and their people together. I never set out to build Ashwood Dog Training. Life took me down a road I never expected to travel. But somewhere along that road, I found exactly where I was supposed to be.
Ashwood Dog Training Bringing Dogs and Owners Together.
