Mojave Desert: Nevada (2022)
Professional Highlights
An overview of professional projects throughout my career.
If there is one thing that I've always known I was meant to do, it's working with animals. My love of animals has been the center of my world for as long as I can remember and I knew at a very young age that I would dedicate my life to understanding them.
I've always been fascinated by behavior and that very quickly evolved into an interest in behavior modification. Throughout the years, this led to many valuable learning experiences and eventually a degree in Animal Behavior.
My career has been full of incredible opportunities over the past 20 years that I am eternally grateful for: everything from get-your-hands-muddy habitat restoration in Wisconsin to serving on the advisory board of two nonprofits during my final years in Nevada.
Psychiatric Service Dog Training
My journey to becoming a certified professional dog trainer has been an amazing lifelong adventure. I began volunteering for local shelters and rescue groups the moment I hit their minimum age requirement, quickly joining an advanced canine behavior modification team. This is where my passion for community outreach and advocacy was born.
I've now enjoyed a total of 20+ years of professional experience working in training centers, grooming salons, doggie daycares, boarding facilities, and even as the Behavior Educator of a large veterinary clinic. Over the years, I have pursued a variety of professional certifications and continuing education to ensure that my clients (both two and four legged!) have the best possible experience while working with me. I am committed to the total well-being of all individuals in my care and proudly use compassion-based methods.
I believe that dog training should feel like a partnership, not a dictatorship.
Pretty much anything is possible with reward-based training!
I am extremely dedicated to providing my clients with scientifically sound, up-to-date training that creates a fun, safe, and positive experience for everyone involved. I believe that inspiring mutually beneficial partnerships between dogs and their owners is what dog training is all about. I love to utilize training as a way to collaborate and communicate with the animals in my life, especially if we can turn the learning session into a game!
In recent years, I've narrowed my focus to the aspects of dog training that light my heart up the most. For the past five years, I had the honor of working with a nonprofit organization that allowed me the chance to serve as a coach for aspiring service dog teams across the country. Regular virtual coaching sessions allow the handler to develop their own personal power through individualized goal-setting, incremental action steps, and confidence building. My most recent endeavor, offering 1:1 virtual mentorships, began by special request - reach out with your ideas!
Hummingbird Conservation
It's no secret that for many of us, the pandemic caused major shifts in personal and professional circumstances. I struggled a lot during this time - as so many did - and felt more isolated than ever from the friends and family who were 1,800 miles away in Wisconsin. I also found myself abruptly disconnected from everything I'd worked so hard to build throughout my first two years in Nevada. I was beyond homesick and hadn't yet developed any tools for processing the ways that the world was changing so rapidly around me. (Luckily, I am now able to see how this chapter unexpectedly unlocked the door to many of the beautiful opportunities that I've experienced in the years since!)
My instinct was to turn toward nature to fill some of the emptiness that I didn't know how else to manage. At that time, I was still stuck in the limited mindset that the blazing hot concrete of Las Vegas and its surrounding desert were… well, a barren wasteland. My homesickness only grew worse as I mentally trapped myself in a real-life "the grass is always greener" scenario - all I could focus on was the idea that if I was home in Wisconsin, the respite of nature would be everywhere I looked! Instead, I got to bitterly look out of my apartment window and be greeted with yet another sand-colored stucco wall. Sweet…
A giant hummingbird made of thousands of flowers = pure bliss.
This fiesty little bird brought so much entertainment to my life.
A series of fortunate events changed my perspective very quickly. I was lucky enough to have a balcony at my apartment - though at the time, I was spending most of my time on that balcony making tearful phone calls to loved ones about whether or not to move home. Thankfully, I decided to actually open my eyes during one of those visits to the balcony - my life changed the moment that I noticed a dazzling pink and green jewel of a bird perched in the nearby tree. I never would have expected that when I entered that description into a search box, I would discover that beautiful bird was an Anna's hummingbird. That was all it took - I was sold. (I've since become more informed on the problematic nature of historic bird naming conventions - learn more here.)
I quickly realized that it was the same bird returning each day to loudly declare my balcony as his territory. I found so much peace in the presence of that fierce little hummingbird. Within the next year, I would be maintaining multiple hummingbird feeders and working as the Outreach Coordinator of a nonprofit dedicated to hummingbird conservation! I was blessed to work alongside a top-notch team that taught me so much about these magical little birds. Hummingbirds will always be special to me - my forever dream is to travel the Americas in hopes of spotting as many species as possible. Did you know that there are over 360?! Check out the Fiery-throated hummingbird... seriously.
Service Industry: Wisconsin to Nevada
The time I spent in the service industry was an unexpected gift that taught me a lot of valuable lessons. I certainly never meant to end up bartending at my favorite pizza joint all those years ago - but I am so glad I did! At the time, that detour was born out of financial necessity. The hard truth is that working with animals and in support of nonprofits doesn't always pay particularly well, especially at first. When I mentor aspiring professionals today, we have honest conversations about the various jobs that I've held that may not seem "relevant" to our shared academic and career goals - at least, not on the surface.
I do this for several reasons. First, I think it is important to establish realistic expectations for the progression of their careers - especially as it relates to patience, flexibility, and trusting new opportunities. I also don't want it to appear as though my own professional journey was a perfectly straight line to success without any unforeseen challenges along the way. (I even had to take time off in the middle of my undergraduate degree to prioritize life's other demands.) I make a point to mention these "unrelated" experiences because they are intertwined into my story in a way that is truly inseparable. My experiences in the service industry helped me grow both personally and professionally in ways that I never could have predicted.
The service industry is a great place to learn how to laugh at yourself...
I am forever grateful for the experiences I had during this detour!
In many ways, those jobs allowed me to build a more stable foundation for my other career goals. The service industry helped me find my confidence and voice as I developed my own unique version of delivering great service. It shook up the shy kid inside of me and offered chances to become more extroverted, socially adept, and communicative. Throughout these years, I came out of my shell in ways that I didn't expect. I had the fortune of being introduced to people who changed my life forever - including friends that I still cherish a decade later. I know that my current clients benefit from the lessons I learned as a waitress... like treating every professional interaction as though it may be an undercover evaluation with a Forbes secret shopper!
For what it's worth, my experiences as a bartender in Wisconsin served as the catalyst for the years I spent in Nevada. It was with those skills that I felt bold enough to move to Las Vegas - which eventually led me to many of the incredible opportunities mentioned above that did relate to my passions. This period of separation from focusing on "achieving" my truest career goals provided a lot of perspective on what I wanted my long-term future to look like. I can proudly admit that some of the projects that I am bringing to fruition today were born from ideas that I cooked up (it was over 110F/43C some days…) in between rounds.
2026 Anna M. Gustafson