Mailey E. McLaughlin, M.Ed. grew up spending weekends and summers in a Volkswagen van camping at the family lot on Lake Lanier. She tramped through the woods behind her home and built forts, created hiking trails, climbed trees, played Frisbee and Wiffle ball in the neighbor’s yard, drank from the hose, and stayed out until she heard the dinner bell ring. Those were the days of building bike ramps to absurd heights, hanging out until dark on the curb, walking alone or with friends to the Tenneco a mile away for a Marathon candy bar and Mello Yello in a can with a dangerous pop top, and catching tadpoles. She permanently borrowed her mother’s Yashica 35 mm camera and set off to win nature photography contests (number entered? She lost count. Number of times won? Zero).
Currently the Animal Training and Behavior Manager for the Atlanta Humane Society, and the Pooch Professor, Mailey helps dogs with people problems in metro Atlanta, and provides articles about many aspects of dog care and training on her website. She belongs to both the International Association of Canine Professionals (where she is currently Vice President on the Board of directors and holds numerous training certifications including Certified Dog Trainer Advanced) and the Association of Pet Dog Trainers. Her blog Carpe K9 brings together dog-related content with her own musings on life, mindfulness, and reverence for nature. Mailey is a native Atlantan who also enjoys climbing trees (now with harnesses and ropes), hiking, writing, photography, human psychology, mindfulness practice, rearranging Broadway musical lyrics to reflect what her dogs are doing at any given moment, and just staring at nature whenever possible.
Evelyn K. Albertson, M.Ed grew up not within the relative luxury of a Volkswagen van, but camping the old-fashioned way: in an old-school canvas tent called the “Hilton” that took 5 people and a lot of parental cursing to erect. Her mother, a modern-day Sacagawea, taught her all the finer things every youngster needs to know, including how to light the best fires, how to right an overturned canoe while in the water, how to recognize and avoid plants that make you itch and snakes that could kill you, how to keep your matches dry, and how to drop a ski. She grew up in animal sheltering, going to work at age 8 with her dad Jim who was the Director of the Jacksonville Humane Society. Like Jim, who was a professional photographer for a time, Evelyn loved taking pictures from an early age and even helped her dad develop and print black and white photography. She started out with a series of Instamatic (complete with eye-altering flash cube) cameras, enjoyed the short-lived Kodak Disc camera technology, and spent years with her Canon 35mm. Now that she is hooked on digital technology, gone are the days of having to know which speed film she needed for a whole roll, and having to wait a week (long after that sun has set and the deer hopped away) for her photos to be developed so she could see if they were any good.
The two have been pert near inseparable since 2000 when they met at the Atlanta Humane Society and hit it off. They were married on their 15th anniversary.
Dogs Go Camping! 