Our team

My name is Beatriz and I am a married mother of two beautiful children and a four-legged son, Auggie, our lovely English Labrador Retriever.  

My passion for dogs began in childhood. We always had dogs at home, and I loved spending time playing with them. I will never forget all the adventures that I, my brother, and our cousins had with Rudy, the German Shepherd who was part of our family for 12 years. 

Despite graduating in the university with a degree in marketing and having a successful career in the corporate world, my love for dogs never diminished—I always felt called to my canine friends.

When my husband was transferred to Canada for work, we relocated our family from Sao Paulo, Brazil to Montreal. Our two, sweet Chow-Chows—Chubby and Kong—made the move with us.  It was a bureaucratic and expensive process to move our four-legged children to Canada, but we did not consider leaving them behind for one second—family doesn’t leave family behind. 

After living in Canada for a time, we went back to Brazil for a three-week long vacation, and for the very first time, we had to board our fur babies. A couple of months prior to our trip, we began the search for a place for them to stay, but we were not happy with the options we found as most of the places would keep the dogs crated for the majority of the day without any interaction or activities, and only offered two short breaks per day in a small backyard. It was heartbreaking leaving our dogs in a place that we did not love, but we had no better option at that time. This would end up being a very sad decision for our family, as one of our sweet Chow-Chows grew ill at the boarding facility and unfortunately passed away just after we returned home, minutes before we pick him up from the kennel—that was a devastating moment for our Family. 

I was feeling a need to reinvent myself since we moved out of Brazil, so it was the perfect time to dedicate 100% and pursue my dream of working with dogs.  I started volunteering in shelters, working as a dog walker and studying canine behavior. The more I studied and got involved with dogs, the more my passion grew. After completing multiple courses and years of experience, I became a licensed dog trainer. 

When we moved to the USA, I quickly found a shelter to volunteer for and began working as a dog trainer and sitter. Everything started small, only attending a couple of dogs at a time but the desire to create a family-style space with the perfect setup for the pups to play and explore off-leash, surrounded by nature, getting both mental and physical stimulation, and—most important, love­—was stronger than ever.

Eventually we found the perfect place to build our dream of creating a doggie resort on, we bought a three-acre property in Leesburg VA where Happy Paws K-9 has been established.  I feel incredibly fulfilled knowing that I am part of providing a safe, loving, fun, social space for our loved fur-babies to enjoy while giving you peace of mind in knowing they are in good hands.