Travelling with the pack and a backpack full of diversity

"I like to test many different things and never really stop learning", says Aimée Frieden with a grin as she talks about her numerous jobs and hobbies during the interview. The 30-year-old's main job is as a dog behavior trainer in Luxembourg, while she also works as a tattoo artist in Holland, brokers puppies in Southeast Asia, models, draws and will soon be active on a dating app – in a professional sense. Together with her two faithful companions Koda and Kenai – a nine-month-old Thai bitch and a twelve-year-old male street dog from Spain – the trained dog trainer is at home in many places, because she goes wherever the wind takes her.

For just under a week, Aimée stays with her parents in Luxembourg before moving on to her second home in Holland. Before that, she spent a long time on the Thai island of Koh Phangan, which she has been traveling to several times a year for the past six years to pursue her great passion here: behavior therapy with dogs. "I am regularly in Thailand to work with the street dogs here. With them I enjoy my job the most, because they have a much less breed-specific behavior than our dogs in Europe, are more independent and tend to be very surprising – just like mixed breeds: you never know what you will get", explains the trainer.

The way of hope

Aimée can already take credit for more than ten years of practical experience; in addition, she has completed a degree in animal psychology and specialized in the human-friendly four-legged friends in Switzerland. "I've had dogs myself all my life and have always loved watching them and analyzing their behavior. So when I dropped out of school at some point, my father asked me what I wanted to do, and it was he who eventually pushed me in the direction of dog training." Even as a young child, Aimée was interested in all things wild and over time realized that her connection to animals was not limited to her own dogs.

So little by little, the young Luxembourger with Filipino roots started training the furry partners of friends and acquaintances and her own little universe was born: Pandoga. "It's a reference to the story of Pandora's box. When it was opened, all evil was released into the world, so it was quickly closed again. The only thing that was overlooked was the hope that also remained locked inside. And it is this hope towards dogs that I want to give back to people with my training, hence the centerpiece 'dog'." There are many different dogs with many different problems, but they can be solved with the right technique and some behavior modification, Aimée said.