Doggie Drawings Origin Story

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In the early 2000’s I moved from Sydney to Los Angeles to design masked wrestler characters for an animated kids’ TV show that I co-created.

As clichéd as this may sound, I adopted a blue-eyed Boston Terrier a few years later and he changed my life and the course of my career. I drew my dog Boogie obsessively. Not only did these drawings help launch Doggie Drawings as a fundraising pet portrait business, Boogie put a hole in my building manager’s leg, almost had me evicted from my home, and before long, I was on an educational journey about dog emotions and behaviors that still hasn't ended.

At first, I misunderstood Boogie’s "aggressive" behavior, and did a lot of things wrong. I used methods that made him more fearful and more aggressive towards unfamiliar people and dogs. When the world of understanding dog body language and a positive reinforcement-based training approach opened up to me, the difference this knowledge made to Boogie and our relationship was something worth telling the rest of the world about.

I love working on educational illustrations. I love taking complex information and translating this into accessible graphics that can make a positive difference to everyone who cares for a companion animal. Over the past fifteen years, I have had the privilege of contributing to many animal welfare and dog bite prevention programs, working with progressive animal trainers and behaviorists. I also illustrate cats, pigs, birds, and other species, as you can see in my portfolio of commissioned infographics.
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In 2020, Boogie passed away two weeks after the publication of my first book - Doggie Language. In 2021, grieving Boogie and missing animal companionship, we adopted two adult cats. My second book - Kitty Language - inspired by Mambo and Shimmy and everything I was learning about cats - was published in the summer of 2023.