Associate Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist (ACAAB)
Certified Behavior Consultant-Canine (CBCC)
Heather became a Registered Veterinary Technician in 2000 and completed her master’s degree in science at Western Illinois University in 2004. She then went to the Wisconsin Humane Society for two years where she managed the dog training program for the public, performed aggression assessments, and behavior modification on shelter dogs. She has over a decade of diverse research and lecture experience from University of California-Davis Veterinary Teaching Hospital, United States Geological Survey, and Colorado Fish & Game. In 2008 she became an Associate Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist after starting her own animal behavior consulting business. For the past several years, she has been lecturing extensively to veterinarians, behaviorists, dog trainers and the general public to improve quality of life for domestic and exotic animals found in homes, shelters and vet clinics. In Jan 2012 she became the Director of Applied Research and Behavior in the Shelter R&D Dept of the ASPCA.
She attended the Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach workshop in 2008 and it completely changed how she facilitated workshops and even her one-on-one interactions with clients. She took the Advanced Learning Design course in 2009 to further develop her skill set and became a Certified Dialogue Education Practitioner in 2010. Almost every day she is using her DE skills to teach a webinar, facilitate a workshop, bringing people together with diverse background or to help a shelter implement a new program to save more lives.