Dr. Nielsen graduated from University of Pennsylvania Veterinary School in 1987. She practiced small animal medicine for 14 years in California before moving to Reno, Nevada. After one of her shod horses had foot-related lameness issues, she decided to learn as much as possible about the equine hoof. She spent a year and a half getting her certification as a barefoot hoof care professional and built up a full-time book of trimming clientele. Simultaneously, she combined her veterinary career with her trimming work into a practice focusing on laminitis, EMS and PPID (Cushing's) diagnosis, treatment, and nutritional management.
In 2016 she started searching for gentler training methods and a deeper understanding of animal behavior and learning theory in order to help fearful equines - especially previously wild burros - integrate into domestic life with humans. In 2017 she adopted her first two burros and fell head over heels in love with this very special species.
Over the next nine years, alongside continuous behavior and animal training studies, she became certified as a trauma-informed equine trainer. Her work morphed into a donkey, mule, and occasional mustang taming, training and trimming affair—an all-in-one service. Today, she has a herd of twelve donkeys, two mustangs, two BLM mules, 3 mini mules, and two "snow bird" mini donkeys who spend summers in Truckee with their other mom. Her favorite recreational activities include training her own equines, helping her hubby train his mustang, day hiking and multi-day pack trips with her burros, not necessarily in that order!