As the youngest of eight kids, I always knew I was a bit of an oddball. I spent most of my childhood outside, fascinated by animals and the way they interacted with the world around them. I was constantly finding ways to get them to trust me—whether that meant convincing wild creatures to eat from my hand or bringing home stray dogs that somehow always seemed to find me.
 

I learned to train my own dogs through a local 4-H club, but even then I was just as interested in observing behavior as I was in teaching commands. I wanted to understand how animals thought, communicated, and learned.
 

That curiosity followed me into adulthood. I majored in Deaf Studies and learned American Sign Language before earning a Master's degree in Special Education. Working with incredible children who communicated in different ways taught me a lesson that still guides my training today: communication is never one-size-fits-all.
 

Eventually, I realized I didn't want to spend my life in a system that no longer felt aligned with who I was. So I took a leap of faith and returned to the one constant that had always been there: dogs.
 

After learning and later managing a protection dog and board-and-train facility connected to a Belgian Malinois rescue, I started Aligned K9 in 2023.
 

Looking back, the common thread has always been communication. Whether I'm working with a dog, a child, or a family, I've found that progress happens when we learn to understand one another. That's what I love most about training—not creating perfect dogs, but helping dogs and people build a clearer, stronger relationship together.