Meet the Face Behind @shetrainsrescues!

 

Hi everyone! I'm Victoria Palacio, but I go by Tori. I am a junior here at West Texas A&M studying Advertising/PR and Applied Communications! Here is a little about me and the things I want to accomplish with my degree in the future. 

I am originally from Bushland, Texas, which is a small town about 3o minutes from Canyon. Now, I split time between WT and Corpus Christi. Tx. Growing up in two drastically different places, I was exposed to many different cultures and opportunities. Here in Bushland, I spent most of my time with horses, goats, and cattle and spent years in the livestock showing and rodeo scene, which was a huge part of my life growing up and helped foster the love I have for animals.

 

In Corpus Christi, I spent quite a bit of time around dogs and our family's dog trainer. I began working with a local dog rescue and eventually began fostering and training rescue dogs as well as my own. Working with a dog rescue, I noticed there was a need for professional photos of the dogs that were up for adoption. When someone was able to come to take good photos of our dogs, the Instagram and Facebook posts would get more engagement, meaning the dogs were getting more attention and more adoption applications.

 

I started job shadowing my mom, who was a photographer and learned the basics of photography, and my passion grew from there! I wanted to improve my photography skills so I could help more dogs find their forever homes. I started entering photography contests so that my work could be critiqued and to make sure I could provide the local rescue with quality pictures for the dogs in the program. 

I have been fostering and training rescue dogs for over 10 years at this point, and I finally decided to do something with the skills and knowledge I have acquired over the years. For the past three years, I have been struggling to decide what to do with my degree and what to do for the rest of my life. I took a step back and looked at everything that I loved to do as a child and the aspects of those that had stuck with me. The main thing was my passion for animals and the rescue dogs that I had continued to help up until the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

I have finally decided to get back to what makes me the happiest and combine my love for photography and dog training by deciding to start my own dog training company! I'm hoping to use the skills from this degree to help me market my business as well as other non-profit organizations like the dog rescue I was involved with. I am still working on getting it up and going, but in the meantime, you can keep up with my journey on my new Instagram account @shetrainsrescues. I am still trying to find a good school-work-life balance, so the account isn't too active at the moment, but hopefully, you will stick with me!