About · Heerlen, South Limburg
I can imagine you’re wondering who is behind Voedingskompas Hond en Kat. Hello! I’m the enthusiastic, passionate person behind it, and this is my story.
Who I am now
Home
I was born and raised in South Limburg, and I still live here: in Heerlen, right next to the Brunssummerheide. I’m a proud South-Limburg ‘maedje’, or girl, as we call it around here.
“It’s in my blood, and I don’t think I’ll ever leave.”
Unless it’s for a house on the water around Vancouver, Canada, so I can see orcas every day.
I live here with my husband, our teenage son, our Old German Shepherd Arya and our Maine Coon, Sansa.
The four-legged family
Two very different characters. Both arrived in 2019, and together they set me off on a self-study crash course in feeding.
Old German Shepherd · since 2019
Arya came home in 2019 as a little fluffball of eight kilos. She’s my hiking buddy, and the reason I finally dared to change the way I feed. She has been fully raw-fed since she was about six months old.
Maine Coon · since 2019
Our little princess. Ever since she was a kitten, Sansa has loved to lie close by. She’s not a lap cat, but she does want to be part of everything.
Both are slowly heading towards their senior years, and Arya regularly needs medication. Giving them extra, well-informed support is a big part of why I wanted to learn more.
Off duty
Honestly, lots of things make me happy. A few of them:
A reader through and through, ever since I learned to read. Fantasy and romance are my favourites, though I read just about everything, including plenty of non-fiction about dogs, orcas and dinosaurs.
I’d love to discover a new city or country every month, and dig into its culture and history.
Gaming, too. My favourite go-to? Fortnite.
Jigsaw puzzles, building LEGO, colouring and board games.
Holidays: Mallorca and France. Cities: London and Rome, although I find everywhere I’ve been beautiful. High on the must-visit list right now: the Cotswolds, Edinburgh and Ireland.
Out in nature, with Arya by my side.
I adore Christmas and collecting festive knick-knacks. And I collect unique, handmade souvenirs from everywhere I travel.
Postcards and pen-pal letters whenever I have time: little moments of contact with people all over the world, and a glimpse into their lives.
Having fun together on the SUP.
Quality time with my family and my dear friends, plus music and concerts.
Back in time
Horses, a soulmate called Rex, a childhood dream about orcas and a few detours. This is where it all began.
Growing up
From the time I was small, there wasn’t a single day I wasn’t busy with animals. I cared for and rode horses, and walked the dogs of other people in the village where I grew up.
My own horse
Eventually I had a horse of my own: Helmer, a Friesian gelding. He had a golden character. So caring, so sensitive, and wonderfully sweet with children. He was truly special, and I miss him.
My first dog
Rex was a year old when I met him. Our souls recognised each other straight away, and from that very first meeting we were inseparable.
The dream
As a girl, my dream job was marine biologist, specifically studying orcas. That huge love for these animals has never faded. I follow everything about them, watch every documentary I can find and have plenty of orca books in my collection. The Free Willy films are my absolute guilty pleasure.
Number one on my bucket list: seeing orcas in the wild, in Canada or Norway. My absolute dream. One day!
2008
At eighteen I started training as a paraveterinary assistant, including my first module in nutrition, and I learned a great deal in practice.
I didn’t finish. Life pulled me in another direction: we moved in together, got married, and suddenly there was a household to run and I was all grown up.
Almost ten years
I stayed on at the supermarket where I had been working part-time and became a team leader there, until I stopped after almost ten years. After that I worked in customer service at bol.com for a while, by phone and email.
Both a world away from marine biology, or from animals at all! But they gave me a lot of experience in customer-focused work, and I bring that with me into my work as an adviser.
Volunteering
Deep down, something kept nagging. The dream of a real job in the animal world never went away. For a while I volunteered with the animal ambulance in Maastricht as a driver and co-driver. I found that very special, and I hope to do something with it again in the future.
Why I started
Thanks to Rex I became fascinated by everything to do with behaviour. He had fear aggression, which put me right in the middle of it, and behaviour turned out to be such a vast and interesting field. I never completed a course in it, but I still hope to do something with it one day. It would be a wonderful addition to nutrition.
With Rex I did think about food, but my knowledge came mostly from practice and I didn’t get much further than a few toppings on his kibble. There was no social media back then, so you rarely came across other ways of feeding. Little by little I read more, from more places, and that’s when I first came across the work Kelly was doing, before her training was even online.
“Just like nutrition, behaviour keeps growing. You can keep on learning.”
When Arya (and Sansa) arrived in 2019, I gave myself a self-study crash course, looking up everything I could so I’d dare to change how I fed. With Rex I no longer wanted to switch, given his age and because he was doing well on it. Yes, I used that standard line, “he’s doing fine on it”, myself too! But now I wanted to do things differently.
I still felt a little unsure, which I think many owners will recognise when they start looking at what to feed and how. So for puppy Arya I kept kibble as the base, topped up with ready-made raw, which she already had at the breeder. Over time I read more and more: feeding guides, research I looked up myself, other people’s experiences, insights from professionals, books. Around six months she moved to a fully raw diet, and by doing it, I grew more and more confident.
Still, it never felt good enough. In my view my knowledge remained too incomplete. I’m a little demanding, and now that I’m in the training I can honestly see how much I was still missing. I wanted to feed with more depth and more knowledge.
As soon as Kelly’s training went online, I knew I wanted to follow it. To me it was, and still is, the best-quality training out there. I wanted to respond better to the needs of my own animals, especially now that Arya regularly needs medication and both she and Sansa are slowly heading into their senior years.
I kept pushing it forward, because it never seemed the right moment. You might know the feeling. Then, last year, I suddenly got the chance to join the students starting on 1 October 2025. Before I knew it, I had enrolled. It felt good, really, really good. I’m so grateful to Kelly for this chance.
“It was time to stop only dreaming, and start doing.”
A few things I’d love to get started with:
Prevention is a real passion of mine. I’d love to help other owners find their way in the sometimes daunting world of feeding, and to help more animals stay as healthy as possible in the long run through preventive feeding. Nutrition is a key pillar, but lifestyle and wellbeing belong in the bigger picture too.
Guiding bitches and queens through pregnancy and lactation, and their puppies and kittens. The training covered this in depth, and I loved seeing how much nutrition and support can do, from before pregnancy right through to after lactation.
Preventive nutrition advice, analyses of the current food including toppings and supplement advice, and bespoke cooked recipes and menus. So you can get started with a well-balanced recipe that suits the needs of your dog or cat as an individual.
Credentials
I keep developing myself so I can guide you and your animal as well as possible. Here’s an overview of my current and completed training, courses and further education, plus a little about my plans.
“Development is not a goal, but a responsibility.”
I’m specialising in canine and feline nutrition through focused training and courses. They form the foundation of my knowledge, so I can guide you and your animal in a responsible, preventive way.
Integrative feed therapist for dog & cat In progress
Nutrition, within the paraveterinary training
To deepen my knowledge I regularly attend masterclasses on nutrition, behaviour and wellbeing. That keeps me up to date with new insights, so I can keep refining my advice.
Dog massage course
Pancreatitis: a complementary approach
Hormone health for dogs
Titre testing and vaccination
Dental problems in cats
CBD: the basics
Homeopathic prophylaxis
The importance of mental challenge
Pregnancy and puppies
Phytotherapy
Herbal workshop
Dominance in dogs
Continuing to develop matters a lot to me, so I already have a whole list of training I hope to follow in the future.
Epilepsy
Longevity coach
Herbal therapist
Essential foundations of dog communication
Sensory enrichment coach
The caring human code, foundation course
Spagyrics
Snapshots
Thank you
This is who I am, and what I want to work on with love every day: helping animals stay healthy, happy and balanced, together with the people who love them, with my own unique and personal approach.
For now, goodbye. And who knows, perhaps we’ll speak soon!
