We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katie Ganser a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Katie, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
My journey has been circuitous – and for that I am grateful. My family is composed of athletes and animal lovers, so growing up I played basketball – but also befriended butterflies, collected frogs, had 7 hamsters all named Fidget, had a litter of guinea pigs, an accidental litter of gerbils when one of the girls wasn’t a girl, and we had multiple dogs. During a summer internship doing ecological research on whale watches, and had the firm realization that while I LOVE animals, I felt compelled to dedicate my life to working with humans instead. Fast forward and I now work as a PA (physician associate) at Children’s Hospital in the Intensive Care Unit. This work is incredibly rewarding and incredibly challenging; it is a privilege to care for families in often the worst minutes, hours, and days of their lives.
During four weeks of quarantine during the pandemic, I found myself taking some online watercolor art classes & started painting my friends dogs. We also started fostering pups around the same time, and they made the best models! As work became more challenging, I found myself turning back to animals for the balance I needed. Now 3 years later, we have foster “failed” two more dogs to our pack of three, helped over 40 of our own fosters find their happily ever, and get to send each one home with their own portrait. This was the birth of my small business Happy Tails & Trails and has been such a wonderful addition to our lives!
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Happy Tails & Trails is both my watercolor pet portrait business and our foster dog promo page/instagram personality. I have had the privilege of painting over 100 dog portraits for customers across the country, and it is so special to get to learn about each of these dogs and their personalities. I always ask the human to send tons of photos to help best capture their personality in their portraits! An unanticipated side effect of this line of work/hobby is how many memorial pet portraits I have been asked to capture, and I am so honored that humans trust me to create a lasting memory of their baby.
What has become the most fun and driving force is capturing and highlighting each of our foster pups on my story. I use the power of social media to really portray the unique aspects of each pet in hopes of helping them find the perfect family. I post stories daily during their time with us, and then memorialize each pet on my profile with their very own portrait. When we take our adoptable dogs on adventures or to local breweries some people will recognize them from insta!
I currently specialize in portraits of cats and dogs, but am always open to expanding my experience to more exotic pets!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Adaptability, perseverance, and positivity. I have found that working with children and animals is a pretty special way to stay positive – despite all the trials and tribulations that my foster dogs and patients in the ICU go through, they find a way to stay postive and get through just about anything. This inspires me in my daily life to take the outlook of a derpy pittie puppy who just wants to love & share their squishy smile with the world (PSA: Pitties were ranked #2 in temperament just behind Golden Retrievers). Adaptability has helped guide every step of my professional, volunteer, and artistic journey and is key to success in all fields. And perseverance sure helps when you are trying to find the right path along the way. I don’t think I’ll ever know what I want to be when I grow up, but with these three qualities I know it will be exactly what I need.
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
Right now, shelters are full and people are surrendering their dogs at unprecedented rates. Fewer than 10% of dogs born in the US actually find loving homes for the duration of their lives. Whether or not you have your own fur baby, those numbers are hard to swallow. We are fostering and using our social media platform to try to spread this message. How can we help?
1) Please adopt your next fur friend. You can adopt pure bred dogs, dogs in foster homes who have had time to show their true personalities, puppies, etc. It just takes time and perseverance. In return for saving their life, I am confident they will change yours.
2) If you can’t adopt, consider fostering or volunteering at a shelter. Rescues will cover all costs, you get some puppy love, and the pup gets a second chance at life.
3) Please spay and neuter your pets.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @happy.tails.and.trails
- Facebook: Happy Tails & Trails: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100021256985325
