A logo featuring abstract blue and yellow paw print and infinity symbol with a heart in the center, and the text "Paws and Presence" underneath.

This Work Chose Me…

Woman with a dog on a leash, smiling, kneeling on a leaf-covered trail in a forest during autumn, with trees with yellow and orange leaves.

My story

I have always been the one who stays.

As a child, I was afraid of death. Deeply, quietly, persistently afraid. And yet I was somehow always the one who showed up when an animal was suffering, or scared, or leaving. I did not have the language for what I was doing. I only knew I could not leave. I knew that what was happening mattered, and that someone needed to be present for it.

I did not know then that I was practicing chaplaincy. I only knew it was mine to do.

Over the course of my life, I have had a pack of five (big) dogs, three cats, and three ferrets. I lost them all within three years of one another, including two of them, within a week of one another. I have fostered parvo puppies through recovery when survival was uncertain. I have been a municipal animal shelter volunteer, foster, board participant, and Director of Operations. I have made life-and-death decisions with and for animals countless times. I have rehabilitated dogs with behavioral problems. I have fostered through many different places, including Indianapolis Animal Care Services, Terre Haute Humane Society, and exotic animals through EARPS (bunnies were so fun). I have veterinary technician experience and wrote the medical standard operating procedures for animal shelters in tandem with local veterinarians. I am a member of the International Association for Animal Hospice and Palliative Care.

I have sat with animals as they crossed over innumerable times, heart full of love, bearing witness to the full weight of that moment. I have built rituals. I have stopped traffic so animals could cross safely. I have gone on duck duty to protect young ducklings. I have held roadside memorials for animals lost on the side of the road, because their lives mattered and someone needed to say so.

I have been doing this work since I was five years old. I was formally ordained as an Interspecies Animal Chaplain in 2024. The ordination named something that was already true.

There is a tension I hold that I want to name honestly: I came to this work carrying a childhood fear of death, and I am now called to walk directly toward it, again and again, with animals and the humans who love them. That tension has not resolved. I do not think it is supposed to BE resolved; it is supposed to be held. And I think it is part of what makes me conscientious, relatable, warm, compassionate, present, grounded, and real in these moments.

I am also a Level II Animal Reiki practitioner, trained in the Let Animals Lead method, which means I offer energy support entirely on the animal's own terms, without force or agenda. And I provide in-home pet care rooted in the same presence and attentiveness that guides everything else I do.

And because of all of this, I am also creating programming for animal care workers - both on an individual and collective level. Because I KNOW what it is like to live and breathe life and death situations within sheltering and animal advocacy.

I founded Paws & Presence because the grief surrounding animal loss is among the most disenfranchised forms of grief in our culture. People are told it was just a dog. They are expected to recover quickly. They often carry that loss alone, without language or permission for what they are actually experiencing.

You deserve better than that. Your animal deserved better than that.

I am here to offer presence, care, companioning, and an open heart and mind. I bring the smarts and heart for you and your animals.

A woman playing with a brown and white dog in a grassy park.
A calico cat with black, white, and orange fur looking through metal bars of a cage.

Driven by passion

This work is a calling, not a career pivot.

I did not choose animal care, animal advocacy, or animal chaplaincy because it was practical or profitable. I chose it, or perhaps more honestly, it chose me, because I have never been able to walk away from an animal in need, or a human sitting alone in grief that our culture has decided does not count.

Paws & Presence exists at the intersection of presence and practicality. Whether I am sitting with someone navigating an end-of-life decision for their beloved companion, offering reiki to an anxious animal on their own terms, or showing up every afternoon to walk your dog with genuine care and attention, the through line is always the same: your animals matter, the bond you share with them is sacred, and you deserve someone who treats it that way.

Night view of a public fountain with water illuminated in blue lights. In the foreground, a dog is sitting on the brick structure of the fountain, and in the background, there are apartment buildings with lit windows and streetlamps.
Black cat with yellow eyes sitting on a white ornate mantelpiece, next to a black flashlight and some markers, with a whiteboard in the background.
A large dog with a black and tan coat, standing in front of a staircase, looking directly at the camera with its tongue slightly out. A black cat is sitting on the stairs behind the dog, near a window, facing sideways.
Two dogs inside a home, one wearing a blue and white striped shirt, sitting on beige carpet, and the other lying next to the door. Behind them, an open closet with clothes hanging and a fabric organizer hanging on the closet door.