'Crazy Dog Lady' Gets to the Heart of Helping Animals
Walking her pack of 11 rescue pups, Karen Rosenfeld developed a bit of a reputation in her hometown - until she began changing the lives of animals and their humans in the most profound way. Issues aren't always as they seem - the devil's in the detail and the fix is in the detail.
Analysis by Dr. Karen Shaw Becker
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STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- Karen Rosenfeld has spent the last three decades improving the lives of dogs and cats via holistic health and wellness consultations
- Nominated for a Healthy Pets Game Changer Award by Tamara H., Karen embraces nutrition and supportive mental, behavioral and physical health strategies for her clients, whose owners come from around the world
- Karen was known as a “crazy dog lady” in her Canadian community, as she walked her 11 rescue pups around town
- It wasn’t until she started her website — Ottawa Valley Dog Whisperer — that she began to make connections with others looking to create a more natural, healthy life for their animals
- She now works with clients in the U.S., India, South America, Europe and Canada, treating every animal as an individual and tailoring wellness plans to meet their individual needs
We call them "Game Changers" — the exemplary, hardworking individuals who have gone the extra mile to promote animal welfare all around the world. Every week, we feature a special Game Changer, so if you know someone in your community who deserves this award, nominate them and help us get the word out about the magnificent work they do! Click Here to Nominate a Game Changer Today!
Karen Rosenfeld has spent the last three decades improving the lives of dogs and cats via holistic health and wellness consultations. As a wellness practitioner and holistic dog behaviorist, she treats every animal as an individual and tailors plans to meet their individual needs.
Nominated for a Healthy Pets Game Changer Award by Tamara H., Karen embraces nutrition and supportive mental, behavioral and physical health strategies for her clients, whose owners come from around the world.
While she’s now deeply invested in the canine world, she didn’t grow up with animals. It wasn’t until a chance encounter with a dog walking by that she realized her life’s purpose:
“One day in my 20s, I was out working in the yard and a woman was walking by with her German Shepherd-collie mix, and I just felt really compelled to go up and see that woman and ask her if I could greet her dog, which I did … There was just something very beautiful about him. He was pretty, but there was something else.
And I got to meet him, and then they went on their way and … something clicked in my head … over the next few days, it just wouldn't leave me. And I guess I realized I was really missing something in life, something very big, to share your life with another being that could bring so much within just those few moments of time.”
A Journey Toward Holistic Healing
Soon Karen had her own dog, a German shepherd malamute, who became her “doggy soulmate.” As someone who embraced a healthy, natural lifestyle, she sought that out for her dog, too. “At the time, there wasn't really anything out there on how to naturally feed your dog and care for them. And so I had to create that for her, using my instinct and what I did for myself. And that really started the journey to where I am today,” she says.
When her beloved dog passed away, she continued to share her life with dogs, including a pack of 11 rescue pups:
“They ranged in size from 4 pounds to 80 pounds, from little Pomeranian to Chihuahuas to German shepherds and pit bull mix. And everybody needed to get along, and they all came from situations where they experienced abuse and severe neglect.
They had health issues, behavioral issues, and everybody needed to get along. And I was a single mom with my kid and I needed things to work. So, I just never thought about it, just pulled things together and made things work and made sure they had long, long, healthy lives. And that's how it all started.”
Many in her local community in Canada viewed her as a “crazy dog lady.” It wasn’t until she started her website — Ottawa Valley Dog Whisperer — that she began to make connections with others looking to create a more natural, healthy life for their animals. She now works with clients in the U.S., India, South America, Europe and Canada. She counts on creativity to find the resources she needs to help pets in areas of the world where options are more limited:
“When you're working with somebody in India or Costa Rica or wherever it is — Trinidad or somewhere in the European Union, the smaller countries — it's a lot to source things. And over the years, of course, I have a huge base of resources, but I get so excited like a kid in a candy shop when I find a new resource or something to help expand that.”
Life-Changing Support for Animals and Their Humans
Karen puts her heart and soul into each animal she works with, peeling back the layers to offer the help they need. The positive changes made are so profound they often help the pet guardians as well. “I really need to sit back and look at the depth of details about the dog's background and current situation, because the devil's in the detail and the fix is in the detail,” she says. It’s what she loves most about the work she’s doing:
“I get to work with healthy dogs too, which is wonderful, but to look at all the layers of whether the dog is healthy or experiencing issues, and let's see what's going to possibly cause trouble in the future and what's led up to massive problems, and pull that apart so that I can then take everything out and rebuild and create something that's life-changing for that individual animal.
Whether it's to maintain their healthy state or deal with complex and complicated issues, and to make that life-changing, comprehensive thing. And often it's life changing for the dog or cat's humans, too, because it gives them so much insight into how they look after themselves.”
Keeping an open mind is key to this transformative journey and something she wants to share with the world:
“Allow yourself to move forward with the best for your dog and cat. Be open-minded, because when we're not, it stops us from evolving to where we need to go to be able to do better for our animals and ourselves. And it's that open-mindedness that really starts the journey and allows you to go where you need to go to make things better for your animals and yourself.
And I think that's the biggest thing, because it's the little key that turns the cogs and allows you to move in those diverse places where you can collect all that and find yourself and myself and people like us. And it's just so important. And when you don't have that, you shut that window down and you can only go sideways.”
If you’d like to learn more about Karen and her holistic wellness and behaviorist services for cats and dogs, you can visit her website OttawaValleyDogWhisperer.ca1 and find her on social media.
Sources and References
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