Why I Started Field Notes, and Why It's Not Really All About Dogs
I didn't plan to build a newsletter about nervous systems. I didn’t plan on working in a cubicle for two years having the everliving life sucked out of me. I didn’t plan on feeling alone, drained, sad, and confused while living what every playbook says is “the life”.
I just wanted to feel happy again. But I didn’t know how.
I went to therapy. I started “The Artist’s Way” (and still haven’t finished the workbook tasks…). I started a couple of business concepts. I kept driving two hours to work every day and crying in my car more often than I’d like to admit.
Through about 6 months of dedicated “trial and error” (to the dismay of my spouse); reading many, many books on whatever tugged at my heartstrings, and feeling the desperate need to “make something of myself” since I am and always will be a sole income earner for my family with no one else to rely on - I think I found it.
I think I found what I’m supposed to be doing. And it all harkens back to what I did as a child. I read. I wrote. I played with dogs. I observed. I was quiet. I relished solitude.
So. I’m 36. I’m a certified dog trainer (still in the damn cubicle.. send help) building a little thing, while researching some big things. I finally chose my Master’s program. Let’s hope I get in…
Anyway. Back to the reading massive amounts of textbooks, non-fiction, science journals, et al.. I finally started to hone in on what it was that I wanted to do.
And the further I got into this work — the behavioral science, the shelter system, the veteran community, the research on what the human-animal bond actually does to both species physiologically — the more I kept running into the same problem. The information that would change everything for people was buried in academic journals no one was reading, or it was being flattened into Instagram infographics that left out all the parts that matter.
So… this is my attempt to fix that.
Field Notes is where I translate behavioral science for the people actually living it. The new adopter whose rescue dog is destroying the house and wondering if they made a mistake. The veteran curious about why their dog makes them feel safer than anything else has in years. The trainer trying to build a practice on something more durable than social media trends. The person who just needs someone to explain what is actually happening, neurobiologically, when their dog won't stop barking. And the discovery of the invisible threads that connect us all.
A little about me, since we're starting from scratch: I'm Kayla. I spent years in the Army as a Blackhawk crew chief and counterintelligence specialist. I have a B.S. in Physiology. I'm a certified dog trainer, CPDT-KA in progress, and currently applying to graduate programs in anthrozoology — the study of the human-animal relationship. I run Sonoran Canine Co. in Northern Virginia, where I specialize in behavioral science-based training with a particular focus on rescue dogs and psychiatric service dog preparation.
I'm also fostering a puppy right now — a bully mix with shepherd influence, approximately four months old when he came to me — who I'm evaluating as a psychiatric service dog candidate. He's going to be a recurring character here, partly because he's compelling, and partly because his journey is something I'm documenting deliberately. There's essentially no published data on shelter dogs being tracked longitudinally through PSD candidacy from early puppyhood. He might become data. He's definitely already teaching me things.
The throughline across everything I do — the training, the research, the show I'm building (more on that later…), the speaking I'm starting to do — is this: nervous systems, human and canine, can find their way home. The science exists to support that. Most people just haven't seen it yet in a form they can use.
That's what Field Notes is for.
Welcome. I'm glad you're here.
x,
k