Debbie's career in animal training began in 1986.  Whilst studying fine arts and nature conservation she worked for seven years as a part timer at Sea World. In Debbie's last year of nature conservation she was offered a full time position as a presenter.  This had become a passion in her time as a part timer and she zealously took on the challenge.

Debbie dived right in and took every opportunity to learn. She was soon rewarded with a promotion to trainer of dolphins and seals. She was also in charge of over-seeing the wellbeing of the penguin colony.

Debbie was privileged enough to travel internationally to gain experience in marine mammal training when she accompanied ten penguins that were transported to Zoomarine, Portugal. During her trips abroad she visited Duisberg Zoo (Germany), Munster (Germany), Parc Asterix (France), Hardewijk (Holland) and Lisbon (Portugal). In these places she worked hands-on with fellow behaviourists to learn more about training principles and show presentation, voluntary medical sampling, water work, medicals, water chemistry, avoiding aggression and staff training. The experience Debbie gained was not only with dolphins but also with terrestrial animals (chimps and elephants) as well as other marine animals such as beluga whales.

While inactive during her pregnancies, Debbie took on the role of fundraising and communication for Sea World. A significant part of this role was organisation assistance of the Treasure Penguin Rescue.  Through this effort almost five hundred orphaned African penguin chicks were successfully rehabilitated and released.

Dog training has always been a passion of Debbie's and during this period she undertook to oversee and upgrade the staff training program at a dog school to improve their training methods. She also worked with “problem” dogs and was involved in show training dogs and advanced obedience, agility and protection. During this period Debbie spent a large amount of time consulting in problem behaviour cases.

But Debbie could not stay away from Sea World, so when an opportunity to return arose, she jumped at the chance to get back to the dolphins.  However, she could not let go of the dog training either, so she opened her own company called Superdogs.

Superdogs operates weeklys on a Monday afternoon on Debbie's day off from Sea World.

Debbie loves sharing her knowledge and interacting with the clients through Superdogs, because she has seen how the  knowledge of an animal trainer can improve the lives of animals.