Meet Julia + her pack

Julia began dog walking, pet sitting, and volunteering with dogs in 2016 while earning her bachelor’s degree in cognitive science at the University of Southern California. As she learned more about cognition and learning theory, she realized how clearly her fascination with behavior was reflected in her love of spending time with animals. She couldn’t picture a career without working with dogs every day, and upon graduating in 2020, she combined her passion for dogs and cognitive science into dog training.

She entered the field as a trainer for an ADI-certified service dog program, training all types of assistance dog skills such as public access, task training, and scent detection. Then she moved into pet dog training as a teacher at San Diego’s first and only prep school for dogs, where she developed a keen eye for healthy dog socialization in a daycare setting by structuring play sessions and teaching basic obedience skills to each dog enrolled. She earned her CPDT-KA in 2022 from the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers. 

Through her years in dogs, Julia has found she is most passionate about developing a partnership between people and their dogs. She likes to teach people about their dog’s natural drives and instincts and how they can use these instincts to have fulfilling lives together. She strongly advocates for bonding with your dog through shared activities: special outings, new tricks, and cooperative playtime. Julia is a true dog nerd who loves to continue to learn about all forms of dog training. She loves to get creative and apply dog training concepts from one discipline to another, as she is a critical and analytic thinker who approaches training holistically and from a scientific behavior modification perspective.

She and her personal dog Hammy are a registered therapy animal team- visiting hospitals together to promote wellness through human-animal connection. She also is heavily involved as dog sport competitor with her sport dog, Honey. They compete in disc dog, agility, barn hunt, and nose work venues as well as teaching lots of tricks- Julia’s favorite thing to train!