Julie received her training at Moore Park Community College in Moore Park, CA. Upon her graduation, she worked as a trainer at Wildlife Safari. While she enjoyed the training aspect of her job, she was drawn to the medical side of animal care and continued her education and employment as a veterinary technician in multiple hospitals in Oregon. Julie’s journey eventually brought her to Northwest Veterinary Specialists; since 1994, she has worked with as a specialty technician in surgery, medicine, oncology, neurology, and ophthalmology.

Julie is an enthusiastic trainer and competes in obedience, rally, agility, barn hunt, and fast cat with her impeccably trained Akitas. She has also invested a large portion of her free time to training; she and her dogs have become both a registered therapy dog team as well as a certified Hope Animal Assisted Crisis Response team. In times of natural and man-made emergencies, Julie and her dogs have been deployed across the country to support those people affected in a crisis.

Adding to her long list of achievements, Julie recently became a certified canine rehabilitation assistant. She is very excited to work alongside Dr. Kasun in the new physical rehabilitation service at VCA NWVS: Julie says “ I am working in a world where the best of medicine and dog training combine!”