About us

Carina has owned and bred champion show dogs since her teens, and later combined a busy career in financial services as investment banker in the U.K., Switzerland and Finland with her passion. She has bred Cavalier King Charles Spaniels and Labrador Retrievers, and since 2011, Scottish Terriers, when her young daughter came home with a Scottie puppy “to stay for the weekend”. This puppy, “Maisa” or International and Multi-Champion, Benelux Winner Perhaps Standing Ovation, is now the mother and grandmother of several champions. Maisa’s daughter “Martha” or International Champion Tartan Dreams Magic Spell, is the namesake for Martha & Friends Dog Wellness.

Carina presented her project of creating a center of excellence providing multiple professional services for dogs to the Luxembourg government start-up program Fit4Entrepreneurship in 2019, and this became a reality when The Dog Wellness Company S.a.r.l. was founded in August 2020, and renovation works began in October on the building which she and her associates had identified a few days before the first lockdown began. Martha & Friends Dog Wellness, the first Center of its kind in Luxembourg, and owned by the The Dog Wellness Company, opened its doors in late November 2020.

A Finnish national, Carina has lived in Luxembourg with her daughter since 2014, and speaks English, French, Swedish and Finnish. Carina is responsible for the management and day to day running of the Center. In the afternoons, she is most often found in the Boutique, where she loves meeting clients and helping them choose the right food or accessories for their dogs.

Tanja is a Detection Dog Trainer, Instructor and an Animal Trainer with professional degree in animal training. She will graduate in autumn -23 as an Animal Trainer with specialized professional degree. Tanja’s strong professional expertise are training Scent Detection Dogs for professional use and behavior therapy and basic dog obedience training.

Tanja works at Martha & Friends as a Head Trainer and she is responsible for the training of the working dogs used at International K9 Institute and Martha & Friends. She works as an instructor in courses and training events, and plans training contents for the needs of clients, is an encouraging coach and is a well-thought-of and experienced lecturer. Tanja trains Explosive Detection Dogs to improve occupational safety at blast construction sites and Bed Bug Detection Dogs to help control pests for professional use. She has solid experience of operational work with working dogs.

Tanja has many years of experience in developing and training quality standards for Conservation Dogs, as well as working with them in a variety of environments and terrain conditions. Tanja works as a trainer and instructor for Conservation Dogs and a surveyor with Conservation Dogs for EU-Life Flying squirrel project since 2018 and for EU-LIFE Revives (freshwater pearl mussel) since 2022. Tanja also has a degree from university of applied sciences in social studies and she enjoys working with dogs and dog owners. She has a German Shepherd and Belgian Shepherd Malinoises.

Tanja speaks fluent English, Finnish and Swedish

Viktorija Zilinskaite graduated from the esteemed Dog Pearl Grooming Academy in Lithuania and subsequently attended many Master Classes and training with Anna Bardysheva (Russia). After owning a grooming salon in France for five years, Viktorija relocated to Luxembourg in 2021. She has led our grooming business since her arrival, including training new groomers.

She speaks Lithuanian, French and English.

Valentina Ossola is a medical biologist and a veterinarian graduated from the University of Milan, Italy, with a Master’s degree in veterinary medicine treating exotic and wild animals. Immediately after graduating, she moved to Luxembourg where she initially worked as resident veterinarian for the Wild Animal Shelter in Dudelange. Here, as she worked with injured animals of various species, she developed a great interest in orthopaedics and rehabilitation. Valentina subsequently worked at Cabinet Vetcare in Roeser from 2022 until 2023 as a generalist veterinarian.

In the spring of 2023, she did an internship in canine physiotherapy and rehabilitation at the Fisio4vet Clinic in Milan, where she learnt rehabilitation methodologies with the aim to treat pathologies and traumas through the use of manual and instrumental techniques, and active kinesitherapy. She will continue her specialisation later this year, attending a veterinary orthopaedic course at ESAVS European school for advanced veterinary studies at the European School WHERE.

Valentina continues to work as a veterinarian at the Pallevet clinic in Garnich with special attention given to fearful animals.

Valentina is a certified fear free vet as preventing and alleviating fear, anxiety, and stress in pets during consultations and procedures is one of her priorities to ensure the physical and mental health of our pets.

Valentina will spend two days per week (Mondays and Thursdays) at Martha & Friends focusing on diagnostics, rehabilitation, physiotherapy and fitness. She speaks Italian and English.

Lea is a passionate animal trainer and conservation detection dog handler with an academic degree in animal ecology. She started her career as an animal trainer and educator for dog owners about 15 years ago. Lea is mainly teaching nosework for pet dogs, helping owners of reactive dogs, and educating dog trainers in science-based training methods. She has also worked as a zoo animal training and management specialist in the past.

Her current pets - and working dogs - are a Labrador retriever, Belgian shepherd Malinois, working Cocker Spaniel, and Australian Kelpie.

Lea speaks English, German, and Estonian.

Ibolya started her career in 1999 as a police officer with the Hungarian National Police. In 2005, she moved over to the K9 team, spending the next 12 years as a dog trainer and handler in International Relations Law Enforcement with the Hungarian National Police. Continuing to build on this experience, in 2016 Ibolya became the Canine Team Instructor for the European Border and Coast Guard (FRONTEX). A few years later, in 2018, she began training dogs in narcotics and explosive detection for the Dubai Police and similar missions globally. Since 2022, and before joining the International K9 Institute, she worked for the United Nations Mine Action Service training dogs in explosive and mine detection in South Sudan.

Ibolya and her colleague Lea will be sharing the head training duties when our head trainer Tanja is traveling for her various dog training missions. While continuing to train professional dogs, Ibolya is looking forward to working with the dogs at Martha and Friends on their day-to-day skills.

Ibolya speaks Hungarian, English and German.

Perrine Capello joined the team in January 2022 with significant experience of working with and training dogs of all types and backgrounds, and came to Martha's after having worked for more than 2 years at the Thionville SPA shelter.

Perrine’s doggy companions are Border Collie mix Poushkine and Romanian rescue dog Zod.

She speaks French and English.

Beatriz graduated from the Escola Superior Agrária de Viseu (ESAV-IPV) in Portugal as a Veterinary Nurse in 2017 (2013-2017). She worked for 3.5 years at one of the largest veterinary hospitals in Lisbon as part of the administration team and as veterinary nurse (focused on Internal Medicine and Imaging). She subsequently moved to Oslo for a few months and worked in customer service/sales.

Beatriz joined the Martha & Friends team in May 2023. Her experience as a vet nurse combined with her wonderful approach to customer service have made made her a valuable addition to our team!

Beatriz speaks Portuguese and English.

Artur Bonarski joined the Martha & Friends team in July 2022. After a successful career in event management, Artur decided to dedicate his life to looking after dogs, both professionally and as a volunteer. In addition to his daycare duties at Martha's, Artur has cared for shelter dogs in Romania though NGO’s in Germany such as Help broken Hearts e.v. and Vierbeiner in Not e.v. Through his work with these shelters, Artur has experience in training and rehabilitating anxious rescue dogs.

Artur has been with dogs since his early childhood, and he currently has two of his own, a 12 years old Dachshund mix, Milan, and a 3-year old Romanian shepherd mix, Kora.

Artur speaks English, German and Polish, and some basic French.

Marta graduated in 2018 as a veterinary assistant in Portugal, where she subsequently worked in a veterinary clinic and assistant groomer in a pet store. She also volunteered in an animal shelter for several years before coming to Luxembourg.

Marta joined Martha & Friends in the spring of 2023, and tells us that “working here is the definition of working without feeling like it’s work” – working with the dogs is her passion. Marta is part of our “para-veterinary team” together with vet assistant Beatriz and Nathaly, a veterinarian, in whose loving care the dogs here at Martha & Friends are in the best of hands!

Marta speaks Portuguese and English.

Saman Farzane joined Martha & Friends in April 2023 as a member of the Day Care team. An Iranian national, Saman worked with dogs for several years before arriving in Luxembourg with his family in 2016. He worked in a dog day care business in Luxembourg for five years until he came to us, caring for boarding and day care dogs and as dog walker. During this time, Saman also worked in the grooming salon, especially with the more anxious dogs.

Saman loves finding new walks with the dogs in the beautiful forest surrounding Martha & Friends, and the many lovely photos taken of your dogs in recent months have been taken by him as his second passion is animal photography. Saman’s doggy companions are the Rottweiler and Dobermann puppy.

Saman speaks Farsi and English

Nathaly recently joined the Martha & Friends Day care team. She graduated with a degree in veterinary medicine from the Universidade Paulista, UNIP, Sao José dos Campos in Brazil (2009-2014). She completed externships at Washington State University emphasizing small animal surgery/clinics, at the Sao Paulo State University specializing in veterinary ophthalmology, and at the Veterinary Hospital of UNIP, in anesthesiology.

Nathaly joined the Day Care and Boarding Team at Martha & Friends as she waits for her accreditation as a veterinarian in the EU, and we have the immense benefit of her medical experience in handling and treating the dogs in our care. Nathaly has several favorites amongst our day care dogs, especially the Schnauzers as this is a breed she grew up with in Brazil.

Nathaly speaks Portuguese and English.

Trixy brings science and passion to her work as a dog trainer (and high school teacher), and has been working as a trainee and freelance trainer at Martha & Friends since March 2022. She holds an MSc in Ethology (Animal Behaviour) and has a deep understanding of animal behaviour and the underlying physiological mechanisms that influence it. In addition, her Postgraduate Certificate in Education equips her with valuable insights into effective teaching methods and strategies. Moreover, she has been organising and leading kids and youth activities as a Scout’s leader and for the “Service National de la Jeunesse” for over 20 years.

She is particularly interested in working with children with learning difficulties and Social Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) needs with her dogs. She leads the Pawsitive Children classes with the support of her pack, the terrible three: Taboo, a certified R.E.A.D dog (« Lesehund ») and agility fan; Easy, currently training to become a school dog (« pädagogischer Begleithund ») and Coco, the professional lapdog.

Trixy hosts both our weekly Kids & Dogs courses and our holiday Kids & Dogs Camps.

She is fluent in Luxembourgish, German, French and English.

Anna-Lena grew up with dogs, her family has had Great Swiss Mountain Dogs for over 20 years. She has been a passionate rider since the age of five and got her own Quarter Horse mare at the age of 14. She trained the mare herself, which had a significant impact on her interaction with animals. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in psychology in 2019, she decided in 2020 to take in a Romanian rescue dog, Amy, from the animal shelter and a short time later rescued the male Chihuahua Jacky. She found her way to Martha & Friends in June 2021, where she now works in Day Care and leads several training classes.

She is currently pursuing her Master's degree in Psychology at the University of Trier, which she is due complete in the coming months. In the future, she would like to move towards animal-assisted therapy.

She speaks fluent English and German.

Isabel Weber is a hugely successful breeder of Greyhounds and Shar-Peis, and a professional handler of many breeds. She worked for many highly respected breeders and trainers in Scandinavia in the early years of her career, and completed her studies as certified dog trainer in 2017. She graduated as professional dog trainer and behaviourist in 2020. Her greatest successes as breeder and handler are to have bred the Junior World Winner 2021 Shar-Pei as well as Owner/Handler of the VDH Winner of the Year and top winning Greyhound in Germany and Luxembourg 2021 and 2022. She has handled many dogs (including her own) to Best in Show, Reserve Best in Show and Group placements around Europe.

Isabel focuses her teaching of show ring handling to adults and juniors on bringing the best out of the partnership in theory and practice, and how to make them both stand out from the crowd. Above all, there is a strong emphasis on having fun with your dog in the ring, which is the basis for true showmanship!

We have been training the Junior Handling team of Luxembourg since early 2023 at Martha & Friends, and are immensely proud of the successes these talented youngsters have brought home in their first international shows this past summer.

Verena Helfrich has been working professionally with dogs and their owners since 2008. In her early years working with dogs, she gained experience working in various animal shelters in Greece and Spain, and training therapy dogs. She has a degree in educational sciences, and now also offers coaching and support for parents and children. Verena has a three-year professional certification as dog trainer and behaviorist, prior to which she completed formal training as a professional dogwalker in Germany.

She has a keen interest in personal development and communication between dogs and humans. In 2019, she published her first book „Outdoor-Abenteuer mit Hund“, and has recently launched Tuulove, a brand of vegan products and cosmetics for dog care. At Martha & Friends, Verena offers various adventures, body-language workshops, nose and scent workshops, and specialised workshops for muzzle and dog gear training. She lives with her husband and four dogs, two Greyhounds, a rescued Spanish Galgo mix and a geriatric Patterdale Terrier, as well as a batch of other farm animals. She is fluent in both German and English.

Jacqueline Koerfer is the founder and owner of “Nosy Dogs”, a dog training center teaching dogs and their owners scent and odor detection. Her training program “Spuernasenarbeit” focuses on training detection dogs with a focus on the conservation of species and nature. These dogs specialize variously in preventing, mapping, and eradicating invasive species, and finding and protecting endangered species of animals and plants.

The advantage of dogs is that they can cover large areas and rough terrain in a relative short time, detect cryptic species and scents hidden in deep vegetation. Jacqueline’s work with detection dogs was awarded second place by RTL as “The Most Promising Start-Up in 2020. Jacqueline is a certified dog trainer under German regulations. She also works with her own four Lagotto Romagnolo dogs, all trained in odour detection.

Since April 2022, Jacqueline’s Spuernasenarbeit course has been training dog-human teams to work together. Over the course of the six month program, dogs are initially trained in the basics of odor detection, and gradually specialize in a chosen field such as tracking wolves or other endangered species, to detecting mold, animal carcasses or young animals hidden in the under-growth. The first Martha & Friends teams are now in their third phase of their studies.

She speaks Luxembourgish, German, French and English.

Jannika has been an Agility competitor for over ten years, and competed at the Finnish National Agility Championships in 2016 and 2017.

She arrived in Luxembourg in 2017 with her dogs, a Parson Russell Terrier and a Cocker Spaniel, with whom she continues her training.

She has completed her education as Agility Instructor and Trainer to the highest amateur level. She has been an Agility Instructor and Dog Trainer for the last five years.

Jannika speaks Finnish and English.

Carina has owned and bred champion show dogs since her teens, and later combined a busy career in financial services as investment banker in the U.K., Switzerland and Finland with her passion. She has bred Cavalier King Charles Spaniels and Labrador Retrievers, and since 2011, Scottish Terriers, when her young daughter came home with a Scottie puppy “to stay for the weekend”. This puppy, “Maisa” or International and Multi-Champion, Benelux Winner Perhaps Standing Ovation, is now the mother and grandmother of several champions. Maisa’s daughter “Martha” or International Champion Tartan Dreams Magic Spell, is the namesake for Martha & Friends Dog Wellness.

Carina presented her project of creating a center of excellence providing multiple professional services for dogs to the Luxembourg government start-up program Fit4Entrepreneurship in 2019, and this became a reality when The Dog Wellness Company S.a.r.l. was founded in August 2020, and renovation works began in October on the building which she and her associates had identified a few days before the first lockdown began. Martha & Friends Dog Wellness, the first Center of its kind in Luxembourg, and owned by the The Dog Wellness Company, opened its doors in late November 2020.

A Finnish national, Carina has lived in Luxembourg with her daughter since 2014, and speaks English, French, Swedish and Finnish. Carina is responsible for the management and day to day running of the Center. In the afternoons, she is most often found in the Boutique, where she loves meeting clients and helping them choose the right food or accessories for their dogs.

Annukka is a toy breed specialist and breeder of Cavalier King Charles and King Charles spaniels since 1971. She has bred/owned over 60 Champions, some of them winning also at Crufts. An FCI All-Breed International Judge, she has been active in dog world for over 40 years as a breeder and exhibitor, and for over 30 years as a championship show judge, having judged in over 30 countries, including Best in Show awards.

She is an elected member of The British Kennel Club. Annukka’s professional life has been as Founder and Managing partner of a leading financial services company in the Nordic region. She lives in Finland and has been an active adviser to the development of Martha & Friends Dog Wellness.

Lars has been involved in the development of the Martha & Friends Dog Wellness project since its inception. He is a private equity investor with more than 30 years of experience in real estate development, technology investments and management of own investment funds. He is an investor in several technology and consumer goods companies, and more recently, has identified the pet services and most particularly the dog care sector as an opportunity.

Besides investing in Martha & Friends Dog Wellness, he has more recently been involved as landlord in the setting up of a new dog day care center in Oslo in 2020.

Helen, along with her children, have been looking after their friends’ dogs for many years before deciding it was finally time to have their own dog. Eddie, a Scottie and son of Martha, joined the family in 2019 and is a regular visitor to our center.

Helen, a former Chief Operating Officer of a major financial services company in Luxembourg, as well as more recently, for a company providing training for the financial services industry in Luxembourg, has been actively involved during the first few months in setting up systems and processes for the daily management of the company. Helen stepped down from her active role to pursue other projects and remains an investor in the company.