About the caregiver

Hi animal lovers! My name is Lucy. I am a 21 year old student at UC Santa Cruz. When I'm not studying I love nothing more than walking or running with my dogs, Bixby, Sussie, and Sima. My love for the natural world was sparked, in part, by growing up with a house full of animals. Growing up we never had fewer than three dogs in the house, as well as parrots, chickens, goldfish, you name it! I also pet-sit for my aunt, with her constant abundance of cats, for as long as I can remember. My parents taught me to love and respect all living beings, a lesson that has guided my academic and career goals ever since. I will be graduating in June of 2022, and would love to have a bit of money saved up. I figure there's no better way to earn a bit of cash than by walking and caring for the wonderful pets of Santa Cruz. As I mentioned above, I've had a LOT of pets throughout my life, TWELVE of-which have been dogs! Those twelve pups all had their own unique personalities and abilities, so I feel very comfortable caring for any dog. I also know the Santa Cruz area really well. Finally, I just want to mention that I am a runner, and love running with dogs. Over the past couple of years I've been the main care-taker of my family dog Bixby. She is a VERY energetic dog, and when we first adopted her from the pound she was pretty hard to handle on-leash. To expend some of her (endless!!) energy, I started taking her with me on runs. Something about being on-leash at a steady fast pace kept her focused, and did wonders for her training. She started to really look forward to going on runs, and was better behaved around the house and on walks, partly in anticipation of a fun run, and partly because she finally had a way of expending her pent up energy. Since then I've taken other younger dogs and/or high-energy dogs out running with me and I've found the same to be true across the board.