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.

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.

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.

Daniel joined our team in November 2024 and has developed our training program since arriving, including new group lessons ("Everyday Life Skills", "Basics for .the Older (or Rescue) Dog" etc.) and series of private lessons for dogs with complex behavioural issues such as reactivity and guarding or anxiety issues, or requiring a more individual approach to training. From 2021-2023, Daniel worked as trainer and member of the day care team for a large dog center near Trier. And as he is in the final months of preparing for his German trainers' certificate (chapter 11 Tierschutzgesetz or German Animal Welfare Act) Daniel has attended numerous courses and intensive workshops an animal behaviour and education. Daniel and his wife Charlotte are also a foster home for rescue dogs from Romania for the animal welfare organoization ProDogRomania e.V. and have to date rehabilitated and re-homed 14 dogs. They now have 5 dogs at home, and Daniel's Malinois mix Coco and and former stray Monti, now trained as assistants, often joining Daniel's training sessions. Daniel teaches in English, German and French.

Trainer and owner of well-known dog school Dog'Educ Luxembourg, is now a full-time trainer and educator at Martha & Friends (as of March 17th). Geoffrey will continue his current training programs with clients, including his highly popular educational group walks (City and forest), private lessons and behavioural counselling at clients' homes and our premises. He also organises workshops and clinics, including a regular First Aid workshop and a running clinic. Geoffrey also holds the French government license to train and work with "chiens catégorisés" or potentially dangerous or listed dog breeds. Geoffrey teaches in French, with translation help into English if required.

Alain Frey joins us on a regular basis for weekend workshops as well as guiding the work of the Martha & Friends training team. Following his passion for working with dogs since his teens, Alain started his formal career as dog trainer in 1979 and soon gained a large following of private clients, working with their dogs in their own homes, diagnosing and addressing issues arising from everyday domestic life. In parallel, he focused on training and competitions with high level performance dogs for over 20 years. In 1992, Alain established a well-known dog training and boarding center near Strasbourg. During his many decades as trainer, Alain has trained and reformed thousands of dogs and their owners, from "simple" education of young dogs to rehabilitation of delinquent and "difficult" dogs. Passionate about his work, Alain wanted to share his knowledge and experience, and opened a school. for professional dog trainers and future canine professionals ("Centre de Formation Professionelle EDUCANIN"). His mission remains to foster aand enhance the communication and bond between a dog and his owner in their everyday life.

Dr. Stefan Oetjen graduated from the Veterinary School in Hannover in 1986, and specialized as veterinarian for small animals (“Fachtierarzt für Kleintiere”) in 1998.

He was also the official veterinarian of two sighthound coursing tracks in Hamburg and Hildesheim from 1996-2001, which led him to further his studies and experience in animal motion and health in sporting dogs. Since 2019, Stefan has been an independent veterinarian, with further spécialisation as Physiotherapist and Chiropractice. He has his clinic in Trier, adjacent to a veterinary practice. Stefan has written several books on animal health and First Aid “Der gesunde Hund” and “Die gesunde Katze”, and gives lectures on First Aid around Germany. He has also appeared on television and been an author on the popular TV series “Tierartzt Dr. Engel”.

Requests for bookings can be made by writing to: info@marthaandfriends.lu or call +352 621 146 096.

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 a 3-year old Romanian shepherd mix, Kora, whom he has trained from a terrified dog in a Romanian shelter to being a confident and friendly dog we can use as assistant in our training courses. Artur has also studied on the Pro-Trainer course of International K9 Institute from February to November 2024.

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

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.

Matías joined our Daycare team in December 2024. An Argentinian national, Matías held senior executive positions in business before deciding to "hang up his suit" and to fulfill his lifelong dream of working with dogs. He grew up with dogs and can not conceive life without being surrounded by them. His current faithful companions are India, a rescued "mestiza" from the Buenos Aires streets, and Sati, a very spoiled Galician Jack Russell girl. Prior to joining our team, Matías worked for another dog day care business, and is now strengthening his studies on canine behaviour and training at Martha & Friends.. Matías speaks English, Spanish and basic French.

Anaïs joined our team in February this year, and is mainly part of the morning and mid-day teams, welcoming our day care dogs with her warm smile as they arrive and taking the dogs on their walks in the nearby park and forest and playing in our outdoor runs. Anaïs has worked for more than 10 years in Pet Services, working as a Pet Sitter in various countries including France, China, England and Luxembourg. Additionally, she set up her own dog walking and pet sitting company 3 years ago, and continues to run "Tata’Naïs Pet Services Company" near Thionville in the afternoons and evenings. Walking dogs in groups in forests and open fields is her favorite kind of work!

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.

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.

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.

She speaks Italian 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 champion 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, Multi Veteran Champion Perhaps Standing Ovation, is now the mother, grandmother and great-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.