Puppy Socialization with Jo Pay

Jo Pay joins Victoria to discuss her journey of raising a new puppy, Jig, a 16-week-old border collie. They explore the challenges and joys of puppy training, the importance of socialization, and the realities of managing expectations as a dog trainer and owner. 

Jo shares her experiences with choosing the right breeder, the significance of sleep for puppies, and strategies for socializing Jig in a safe and controlled manner. The conversation emphasizes the emotional resilience needed for both puppies and their owners, highlighting the rewarding yet demanding nature of raising a puppy.

• Solve reactivity with Victoria's powerful course on Positively.com: Help! Stop Reactivity. Learn more & enroll here.

• Launch or level up your career as a professional dog trainer with the Victoria Stilwell Academy. Learn more here.

• Launch or level up your career as a professional dog trainer with the Victoria Stilwell Academy. Learn more here.

• Solve behavior problems and find tools to help live your best dog life at Positively.com.

Transcript

Copy

Victoria (00:08)
Welcome to the podcast, everybody. I have a fabulous guest who is for one of a better word, a new mother. You've heard her on this podcast before. If you are in the UK, you have been lucky enough to see her in two series of the Dog Academy. It is Jo Pay She is back. She is a new mother and she's here to talk about it.

Jo (00:18)
Yes.

Victoria (00:37)
because I think what Jig is now 16 weeks old, Jo? Okay, so Jig is a border collie pup and that Jo has taken on and as we were just talking beforehand, know, when you've been so used to looking after adult dogs and then senior dogs with all of their issues, then

Jo (00:42)
She is.

Yes.

Victoria (01:05)
when unfortunately those beautiful senior dogs pass on. Going back to puppyhood, that can be a very big change. But before we talk about this, I do want to say to everybody, do you know that Jo and I have a ⁓ seminar on the 6th of June, 2026 in Wigan, the UK? In person! I was so excited.

Jo (01:28)
Yes, in person, real life. ⁓

Victoria (01:33)
It's the reactivity zones approach with Victoria Stilwell and Jo Pay And we are going to talk about the reactivity zones approach, which is a paradigm shift for professional dog trainers and behavior consultants. And so Jo is going in the morning and she's talking about raising puppies and preventing hopefully reactive behavior or the need to show reactive behavior. And then I take away in the afternoon what happens if your dog is showing reactive behavior.

So Jo, we're doing this, I mean, I haven't spoken with you live for, or done a conference, a live conference since COVID, since before COVID.

Jo (02:15)
No, think it would have been one of the dog behaviour conferences that we did well before Covid. So that must be, I can't remember the last time we did in person, it must be eight, seven or eight years ago, maybe more.

Victoria (02:30)
Yeah.

So 2019 was our last in-person. And of course we were supposed to do an in-person in 2020, but we had to cancel it. And that's when we quickly put it online because we didn't want to let people down, but we couldn't come to England. We can, we had all the hotel booked. had everything booked, all the speakers, you know, the whole thing. And we just had to, we just had to cancel. So it was a very, very odd time. Anyway, we've got this fabulous conference coming up. So do get tickets.

Jo (02:38)
Yeah.

No.

Yeah.

Victoria (02:59)
Jo, where would they go to get tickets?

Jo (03:01)
So you can go to my website, which is www.standishdogtrainer.co.uk and there is a page for seminars and conferences. If you click on that page, there is a nice big book now button and you can book your place. We are still in early bird at the moment. So you can use an early bird discount code to get a discounted ticket. I think it's the end of Feb. I think come the 1st of March, we have

Victoria (03:24)
But when does the early bird finish?

Okay.

Jo (03:30)
the tickets then go up to full price. So at the moment you can still buy early bird and of course if you are a VSA graduate there is a code for you, you can get a discount and if you are on VSPDT there is also a code for you, you can get a discount too.

Victoria (03:45)
Yeah. And the day before we've also got a special day as well. So if you're a VSPDT listening to this, VSA grad listening to this, and also a faculty advisor listening to this, then you come to our special day, which is on Friday, the 5th of June, and we'll be giving you information. Hopefully you've already got information actually about that, but do come and join us there for a sort of, it's a retreat, but we are going to be just talking all things dog. I mean, like what else would we talk about? So, but.

Jo (04:14)
It's going to be lovely. It's

a nice cozy little venue just for us where we can all get together and share ideas and share information and share education and it'll be lovely. Really nice day.

Victoria (04:15)
Yeah.

Yeah,

it's what's needed, isn't it? Okay, so Jo, introduce us to Jig and the trials and tribulations and the joys that you're experiencing raising a new puppy.

Jo (04:38)
Yes, so Jig is currently having a nap because one of the things I that I share with clients all the time is that puppies need 16 to 18 hours sleep in every 24. Never has that been more apparent in my life than right now. Oh my gosh, puppies need their sleep. So at the moment it is 10 past four in the afternoon in the UK and

she needs a nap in the afternoon, she needs two hour nap in the morning, she needs a two hour nap in the afternoon and she needs to go to bed on time. So I can't introduce you to her in person because she's napping. But yes, Jig is a 16 week old border collie puppy. She's a female puppy, which is new for me. I've always had male dogs up to now and I wanted something completely different. Having had two border collies before,

Having had a Merle and a black and white, I wanted the same breed because as we all know, I love Border Collies, but I wanted to not be comparing my puppy to my previous dogs, which I think is unrealistic to be fair, because I still do, but I wanted something completely different. We picked her up at eight weeks old. So she's been here for eight weeks now and she is everything I wanted. So we're going to talk a lot about this at the conference, but...

I was really careful to really look for a ⁓ good breeder, what I thought would be a good breeder. For health testing reasons, because collies have lots of possible hereditary genetic conditions. So I wanted to find someone who would be doing genetic testing that was all good. I wanted to find someone who I could see lots of progeny. I wanted to see relations.

of my puppy to see what their temperament was like because Twist was a very, very fearful dog. It turns out that was possibly more complicated than we knew at the time. It seems following his death, he had a brain lesion, which would explain quite a lot. However, temperament and health were my priorities in finding the breeder.

So was very lucky in that I have this lovely community of clients who have wonderful dogs. A couple of clients in particular like me choose Border Collies. So I went to them. I've done lots of research, but I wanted to meet some dogs. So I went to a couple of my clients and said, like, your dogs have great temperaments. Where did you get them from? A couple of them had got them from breeders that are no longer breeding or from lines.

that the mums and dads are no longer having puppies, which is not ideal. One of my clients, Collette, has a border collie called Meg, who is, ⁓ she would be a half sister to Jig. I also had lots of videos sent to me of other progeny from this direct mating. This was the third mating for this male and female and the last. So I got to see videos of and meet other.

siblings of my puppy basically. And the thing that I loved about them is all of the puppies that I met and all the videos I've seen were dogs that were highly social. So that's how I chose my breeder was the health test looked beautiful, the genetics looked nice, the temperaments on the dogs that I met were great. When we went to visit the litter, she had kept two from the previous litter, a male and a female.

who were also lovely. The male was a little bit shy for two or three minutes, but then quickly came around and she had a lot of other collies that she had bred that were all highly social with Craig and I. So for me, that was a big win because as you know, we've talked about twist so, you know, so many times. I spent 10 years walking around the same field with that dog because that's what he needed. And I would do it again in a heartbeat for him.

But it's really lonely. So I wanted a dog that I could go places with that could be my wingman, that would be my shotgun rider and we could go everywhere with, which is what Indie was. And that, think.

is what I've got. Picking her, there were seven puppies in the litter. There was a bundle of six puppies all together all the time. And then there's this one puppy, the smallest puppy, who was just off on her own all the time, getting into trouble, exploring, finding things, being brought back and going, no, no, no, I'm going over there on my own. So I chose her because she was

on an adventure all of the time. And I thought, well, that's what I want. I want an adventure with my dog. she is that, she is, she is that environmentally, she is so confident, so confident. She is curious. She likes to investigate things. She is thoughtful. She hangs back a little bit and has a look and she's got the cutest head wobble. When she looks at things, it's like she's one of those bobble heads.

Victoria (10:09)
Hehehehehe

Jo (10:13)
So she'll bobble at the thing, but then we'll go and investigate. So she is, she's everything I wanted, everything I wanted. The flip side of that though, is that she is confident and sassy and she knows her own mind. ⁓ she's vocal. my God. Yeah. Yeah. You, yeah, you get it. And she's vocal. I've never had a vocal dog before.

Victoria (10:32)
Be careful what you wish for. Be careful what you pick.

Jo (10:43)
And she, if she comes across something she's not seen before, she sits back, thinks about it and shouts. She just shouts at it. Watering can, shouts at the watering can. A delivery that's in the hallway. Definitely shout at that because there should not be a cardboard box in the hallway. Radiator valves make a noise apparently. I didn't realize this. Shout at those for sure. I think, yeah, you can see, look, if I just tell the camera, see the bean bag over there, radiator.

Victoria (11:11)
Yes,

yes, yes, yes. That's good management, Jo. Good management. For those of you who listening, there's a bean bag over the valve of the radiator.

Jo (11:13)
you

So yeah, you need to be careful what you wish for ⁓ because you get all of it and it's, you know, a lot of it for me, most of it is very, appealing because I wanted someone social and confident and environmentally confident so that I can take her places and she is that. I see the difference between male and female now.

boys are so, I mean maybe other people's experience is different. I found my boys to be so eager to please, so whatever you say mum, yes I'll do that, that's lovely and she thinks about it and if she's not in the mood she's like no, that's a no. I think in the first two weeks she was in the garden and I was like Jig come on we're going inside and she looked. I was like come on we're going.

Victoria (12:02)
Okay.

⁓

Jo (12:18)
And she just really slowly sat down. It was like, I'm not coming, staying here. I thought, oh, that's interesting. And I go get a treat, I'm there with the treat and she's like, hmm, still no. Okay, you're sassy. I think some of that is relationship, because it was in the first couple of weeks. Generally now when I say, let's go do this, she's like, oh yeah, okay. So I think it takes time to build a bond, doesn't it?

So she is, I'm hoping, growing into a really environmentally sound social butterfly, which is what I wanted. Flip side though, is when you're a dog trainer, people think that it just is idyllic all of the time. And because I've been without a dog for...

over a year, I think it was just shy of a year when we brought her home. People think that it must be like a love story all of the time. And it's lovely and it's easy and it's romantic and you must be just in this lovely happy puppy bubble. And we are most of the time. But you forget how hard it is to raise a puppy and to live with a puppy who does not know.

doesn't know how we live in this house, doesn't know when meal times are, doesn't know when sleep times are, doesn't know when it's okay to be noisy, when it's not, when it's okay to be mouthy, when it's not. I've gone through three pairs of pajama bottoms in the first two weeks, I think, without just jumping and hanging with her teeth. And you forget, ⁓ it's great. So you forget, don't you, how hard it is and how tiring having puppies is.

Victoria (14:03)
What a fun game!

Jo (14:12)
And it is, it's, even when you're a dog trainer, you don't want to be a dog trainer 24 seven.

Victoria (14:20)
Right. Yeah. You know what I do? I, I, I'm really glad you said that because I think there's this expectation that, know, we don't really want to bring our work home with us. I mean, it's good that when we have dogs that we can use all of our knowledge to help our dogs, but yeah, absolutely right. I don't want to be a dog trainer 24 seven. So, um, do I have to be perfect? Does my dog have to be perfect?

Jo (14:21)
Do you want to sit and chill?

No, when I come in.

there's a huge amount of pressure from that. A huge amount of pressure for that because, and it's not necessarily, it's not brought by anybody else. It's purely me. And you know, when I come in from teaching classes and it's 9.30 PM and she's tired and overstimulated and I want to have something to eat and get in my PJs and chill on the sofa. And she's doing zoomies and wall of death and hanging off my pajama bottoms. ⁓

I'm like, I don't want to do this right now. This is and you compare, you compare. I'm sure Indy never did this. And then last night I was laying in bed and I thought, you know what, I remember Indy at this age. I think he chewed a hole in a wall. But you know, he lived to be 16 and he was perfect. So maybe he never did. You forget, you forget, don't you? And...

Victoria (15:33)
Right, right.

So it's been

over 10 years since you've had a puppy.

Jo (15:45)
Yeah, easily, because Twist was 10 when he died and he's been gone a year. over 10 years since I've had a puppy in the house. And even though I see puppies every week and I go and do puppy packages in people's homes and I do puppy classes, living with a puppy and going into the house and they're like, oh my God, this really sticks in my head about a year ago. It would have been about the time Twist died. I was doing a puppy package with a family who'd got a Westie puppy.

And the man said, he's mouthing all of the time. And I thought, all of the time, really? And I went to his house and his hands were covered in scratches and wounds, tiny little wounds. Luckily, I'm not that bad, let's see, no, no blood. But I thought, it can't be all of the time. But there are days where Jiggy's awake and a

a significant portion of the day she's jumping, grabbing clothing or mouthing. And I think those days are growing days. I think they're brain development days. I think they are days where she has been overstimulated the day before, probably. And at the time you're in it, feels relentless.

And when you go to a customer and you say to that customer, oh, it's okay. Just offer her a toy. Just do some settle training. Just pop it in your crate for a nap. It's so easy to say that. And then, right, anyway, see you next week. Bye. And jump in your car and go home. And they still have that for the other 23 hours of their 24 and tomorrow too. And I think...

It's a really good reality check. And I think social media, I'll confess, my social media looks like Jig is the perfect puppy.

Victoria (17:40)
Yeah, your social media is great. I mean, it really is. I'm enjoying watching Jig's development and the teaching that you're doing with her. But it isn't all rainbows and butterflies, it? No, no. You know, the reality check, that's, think all trainers need that. Anybody really that's an animal care professional. But whatever job that we do, we have to remember that person's experience is that person's experience.

Jo (17:49)
But that's not all. No, it isn't. No, it isn't.

Mm.

Victoria (18:10)
And it's like, guess it's like having grandchildren that you can go and you can experience and have a nice day with your grandchildren, but you can give them back at the end of the day. That's it. And then you go home, put your feet up for people who are living with the infants and the babies and the small ones, the toddlers. It's a lot of work.

Jo (18:18)
Yes. ⁓

It is, it is. And it's, it's the same as everything in our job though, isn't it? Before I had Twist, when I would go out to clients with reactive dogs, I didn't have as deep an understanding until I had a dog that struggled with the world. And suddenly you feel, you can empathize so much more with your client and...

with a puppy, do, confessions, people who get sibling puppies, I do not know how they do that. I don't, I really don't. Regardless of the benefits or not to the dog, just I do not know how people have two puppies from the same litter in their home and don't go crazy.

It must be, I can't even imagine how that must be. Don't do it. Don't do that.

Victoria (19:28)
Yeah, yeah, don't do it, don't do it.

The good thing about this at this conference, you're gonna be talking about a lot of this and a lot of practical ways that you are helping raise her because at end of the day, this is the reactivity zones approach. This is about not just about dealing dogs that are now have developed reactive behavior, ⁓ but this is also working hard.

on prevention. So raising a puppy right, ⁓ doing the best you can with all the knowledge that we have so that you can prevent behaviors like this so that she doesn't struggle with the world. And I think you're right, Jo, when it's hard, we try and be empathetic as trainers, but it isn't until you have experienced it yourself, you're emotionally attached to this particular being.

that is struggling with the world. So I've had two of those. I've had Sadie who came to me when she was five. And then I had Jasmine when she came to me when she was six months old. And both of these dogs struggled in different ways with the world. And it took a lot of work to, I suppose, create more comfort for them. And that started with understanding, but...

Jo (20:49)
Yeah.

Victoria (20:54)
what I'll be talking a lot about as well in the, ⁓ in the reactivity zones approach is it's the embarrassment. Yes. But it's just, it's all, it's also that sinking feeling that my dogs have let me down. And it's like how

Jo (21:15)
Yeah.

Victoria (21:18)
Because I had great aspirations for what I was gonna do with my dogs, right? With Sadie, I was gonna do therapy work. With Jasmine, I was going to do lots of lectures and seminars and take her along with me and go on morning shows and things like that. My dogs didn't match what my desires were for our relationship. And to begin with, I was like, what have I done? I've made such...

Jo (21:22)
Yeah.

Victoria (21:47)
such big mistakes, which is terrible to think about this dog in your home. But of course, once I kind of got myself out of the way and was like, all right, shut up. Let's really, let's see. No, you won't be able to do therapy work. Uh-uh, not with Sadie. And you won't be able to do this with Jasmine, but look at the dogs that you have here. Now put your dog trainer hat on.

Jo (21:49)
Yeah.

No.

Victoria (22:17)
clean up your tears and get on with it. And that's what I did. And of course, both of those dogs, lived to 16. Well, Jasmine lived to 15, Sadie lived to 16. They were my heart dogs. I hope I made their lives as rich as possible, but they certainly made my life rich. But I understood and empathized with people that had dogs that showed reactive behavior. I was like, I get it now.

Jo (22:18)
Yeah.

god, yeah.

Yeah,

oh you do. I think, I think when you go to bring a dog into your life, like you said, you have these aspirations and dreams about what you're going to do together, like I have just done with Jig. And when it doesn't work out that way, we've said this before, I'm sure, you go through a grieving period for the dog that you don't have, that you wanted before. And I think you've got to go through that. You've got to go through that to be able to accept the dog in front of you.

and see the value in them. It's not what you had in mind, but they each have their own value and they each have something to teach us and it's so valuable. But you, like you say, you have to just, you'd have to dry your tears, but you have to let the tears come and you have to experience that and feel it before you can then go, okay, that's not this dog, but it's okay because this dog is going to teach me something and we are going to have a journey together. And it's hard to do, but when you do,

Victoria (23:27)
Yeah.

Jo (23:40)
like you say, the value and the heart that you get from that is...

Victoria (23:46)
Well,

it's even, it's immeasurable really. I mean, you know, and I can't, was like, my gosh, I started off blaming my dogs and I can't do what I want to do. But actually I got so much more from these beautiful, and we had, they had beautiful lives. We had beautiful lives together. And I can't, like,

Jo (23:49)
It is.

Yes.

Yes.

Victoria (24:14)
You know, you said, would you do it all again with twist? Well, yeah. In a heartbeat, right? Wouldn't you? Yes. So I think anybody out there that's like, questioning their decision or the dog's been embarrassing or they're exhausted or whatever. We understand. I think that's all we can say is that we understand. I would like to.

Jo (24:18)
In a heartbeat, in a heartbeat. 100%. yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria (24:42)
In the second part of this podcast, talk about some of the practical things that you're doing with JIG to help socialize. Let's talk about socialization. So we will be back after this very brief message.

Jo (24:51)
Mm-hmm.

Victoria (25:08)
I'm back with Jopay. We're talking all things puppy. Right. Let's talk about socialization. It's lots of people actually don't like that word anymore. Yeah, it has. Yeah. So I know there's so many other things and that you're to talk about that at the conference and you've got loads of amazing videos. And I think we're going to learn so much, but let's talk about socialization.

Jo (25:20)
think it's been a bit poisoned, hasn't it? But I think it's still relevant.

Victoria (25:36)
for people on here on the podcast, won't be able to come to the conference.

Jo (25:41)
Sure. So socialization, the way I imagine it, way my definition for socialization is exposure to all of the things that we need our dog to deal with throughout its life at a frequency and intensity, a distance, a volume that the dog is aware of. But I want my dog to feel comfortable and safe and positive while it's having those experiences.

For me, I don't need my dog to be touched by anybody. I don't need my dog to be touched by another dog. I don't need my dog to touch another person or another dog. But I do... It happened. It happens though, you know. I was out with her talking to some ladies and a gentleman came, a big man, a big, man. And he was like, it's a puppy, it's a puppy.

Victoria (26:22)
Hear hear.

Jo (26:41)
He sat down, he crouched down to invite Jig to come in. I think she'd only been going on the floor for about four or five days. He crouched down to invite her to come to him and she did her little bobblehead thing. She does. And then she sat by me and was like, no, I don't think so. So, okay, gave her a treat. That's fine. Good choice. And he stood up and went round the back of us and I thought he was going and he didn't. He appeared over my right shoulder and picked her up. Yes. my God.

Victoria (27:01)
⁓

No!

Jo (27:08)
I got home, poor Craig, I was raging. was like, my gosh, this man, did this and he did that. I was so mad. And if he's ruined my puppy after all the work I've done, I was raging. But I just very calmly, you'd have been proud of me. I was very calmly, excuse me, can you put her on the floor, please? And he just went, okay. And he did. But she was shaky, trembling and wanted to leave. So we did.

Victoria (27:13)
⁓ God!

Well done.

All of these like swear words want to come out of my mouth. Would they do that if you had a child? Would he just like with the kids sitting on would they would he just come up and pick the child up? Very likely not.

Jo (27:36)
I know.

I

Very likely not. So I was.

Victoria (27:55)
But with puppies,

right, it's open season, you're so cute. I'm gonna pick you up. my goodness.

Jo (27:58)
Yeah, and she's so tiny

that it was very, ⁓ yeah, so. Yeah, that's what we don't want. So for those of us who are who are learning about socialization and of course we've got the we've got all the technical words like habituation and that kind of thing. Yeah, we don't want that. Don't be allowing people, random people that you don't know and trust to just scoop your puppy up in the middle of the street. But yeah, so for me I want exposure, but I want exposure at a

Victoria (28:03)
okay. No.

Jo (28:28)
in such a way that my puppy feels safe, comfortable and happy and has choice to leave if she wants to. And I think in my position as a dog trainer, I am somewhat privileged and this has been a little bit easy for me because I have this wonderful community of dog handlers who are clients of mine that I have trained their puppies from day one.

and I have this community of adult dogs who are just lovely. They are so lovely. I have been from day one, I've been taking Jig out and about with me in the car, in a carrier. We quickly learned that traffic was a concern for her. For a little puppy, this is no surprise. For a Border Collie, again, it's no surprise. It was something that was at the back of my mind. So

Victoria (29:18)
was it?

Jo (29:27)
I've been doing traffic very carefully and I'm still doing it very, very carefully because I don't want her to be stressed. And we do live in an area where there is quite a lot of traffic. I'd love to be able to walk from home, but to do that, we have to pass some quite busy roads. So traffic, we've been working at very long distance, very gentle exposure for very short duration. And we've been playing traffic sound at home.

in the background. With the sound things, I'm going off on all kinds of tangents now because it's all happening at the same time, with sound we are playing sounds alongside our everyday life so we don't stop everything and play the sound on its own. My house is quite a noisy house, I have music on all of the time in every room.

Victoria (30:11)
Right.

Jo (30:21)
and we are kind of, don't tiptoe around in our house. We're shouting up and down stairs to each other and it's quite noisy. But the music's going on, the cooking's going on, the washing machine is on and in the background on another mobile device there is traffic sound. Engine noise, honking horns, car doors closing, that kind of noise. So that I can help her adjust better. We're quite lucky when I go outside my back door, you can hear cars on the road without having to see them.

So that's quite nice as well. spend time just sat out there listening to the world. So that's been really, really useful. I have had people coming to the house from, think about day, she came home on a Saturday. I think my kids came on the Sunday, which, you know, try keeping them away from a puppy, but it was lovely. And then we've had, we've had visitors before she could go out. were having visitors every, every other day, every two or three days coming around.

Victoria (31:06)
Mm.

Right.

Jo (31:20)
men and women and again all people who I trust and that will listen to me. Going out and about I was taking her out in a backpack taking her into places like cafes again I think I'm lucky because I live in a small community the people that I the cafes or restaurants or bars that we go to the people know us and they know what I do for my job.

Victoria (31:27)
Right.

Jo (31:49)
some of them, a lot of them have seen the TV show, so I go in with a puppy and they're like, ⁓ what do you want us to do? What should we do? So, and so they're so good. They're so good. like, can we, can we? And I'm like, yes, but can you do it like this? And can you do it like that? And they do, which is amazing. But I think, you know, everyone can do that. Everyone can advocate for their puppy. If someone says, please, may I greet your puppy? You can say, yes, but can you crouch down?

Victoria (31:56)
⁓ that's amazing!

Jo (32:17)
can you put your hand out low? If my puppy chooses not to say hi, please don't be offended. That's maybe a chat is all you're going to get. So we've done lots of that.

Victoria (32:30)
Can I just go back to noises though? Because you were talking about how she's beginning to shout when she hears the valve of the radiator. So that what you've done is managed that situation by putting the bean bag over that to muffle that sound, yes? And how has that worked with her?

Jo (32:32)
Mmm, yeah.

Mm.

It works really well actually, that's enough for her. With the radiators that's enough. I thought probably about a week or 10 days ago Craig and I were chatting and I thought I don't think she has barked at a radiator for a little while and I've moved the cushion.

And I think there was one day earlier in the week, we were in another room and I could hear her. It's a different bark. It's quite a playful yipping noise. And there's a bit of bouncing going on, but there's pipes and it's hot and I'm like, oh, don't chew that. don't chew that. You can get very hot and very wet very quickly.

Victoria (33:12)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Yeah, yeah. So it's not, it's not

like necessarily, it's not a fear response. It's not like a, it's almost like a what you, what are you? Curiosity.

Jo (33:25)
Doesn't seem to be with radiators,

Yes, yeah,

she's very much like that and bang noises like if I drop something or if there's a slam outside, again because of the temperament of the dog, she tends to go, she'll start to look, ⁓ she'll just carry on. So for her, for this puppy, I don't need to do more work on that. But actually speaking about sound, thinking about it, she obviously never had fireworks.

and we had New Year's Eve, we picked her up at the 29th of November and then we had New Year's Eve of course and Christmas and there's a lot of fireworks here at New Year's Eve. So we were playing firework, alternating traffic noise and firework noise in the house from the second week of her being at home. I tell you who was really consistent with this as well is my husband Craig, he was brilliant with it. Whenever he came downstairs to make a brew because he works from home

and was doing something, he'd bring his phone and play fireworks. So we were doing... Yep, so what we did was this room we're in now is at the back of the house. He brought her big crate in here. We covered up the crate with a duvet, so it was nice and muffled. We brought lots of bean bags and cushions in here to kind of try and absorb a little bit of noise if possible. We had music playing in other rooms.

Victoria (34:34)
So what happened then at New Year's Eve? What happened?

Jo (34:58)
we had a movie in here, we just camped out on the floor of my office and had a movie playing, but we also had the soundtrack that we've been playing as well. Which is a lot, isn't it? It's a lot. And do you know it worked? She went into the crate and slept and actually all three of us fell asleep in here. And at one point, I think I've got video for the conference.

Victoria (35:09)
Wow.

It's a lot, but it's brilliant.

Hmm.

Jo (35:28)
At some point a firework went off and Craig said, was that outside or was that on the soundtrack? And I said, I don't know, because the movie was going as well and she didn't know either and she had no stress at all. She was great. Now, she's a young dog, she's a puppy. We know as dogs get older, that can change. We can get startle responses. We get second fear period coming up.

Victoria (35:35)
Wow.

Mm.

Jo (35:55)
So what we have done since then is we have continued to play Fireworks soundtracks, even though we've not expected.

Victoria (36:02)
So it's the consistency

is really important. It's not just, okay, now we're going to prepare our dogs for New Year's Eve, boom, done, finished. And now, yeah, it's the consistency. You keep it going.

Jo (36:05)
100%.

Mm-mm.

We're

keeping it going. We're keeping it going. Which I never even, this just shows how knowledge changes and how you learn. I never even considered it within Deal Twist.

But now with her, I'm like, we can do this. And, you know, it helps that we both have the bandwidth now. Our children aren't at home, so we don't have them to worry about with Christmas and New Year's and there's, you know, entertaining them. It's a little bit different. So we have a little bit more headspace to think outside the box, or what about this and what about that and shall we do this? And it's, it's worked really, really well for, bonfire, for New Year's it worked really well.

We had an evening where we went for a walk because she needs to sleep. One of things I was worried about was leaving her home alone. Because know, Craig and I love to dance and we go out dancing and I like, I don't want to give up my dancing. So we were worried about leaving her home alone. So we've been doing that as well. Five minutes, 10 minutes, five minutes, 20 minutes, 10 minutes and taking advice from Nicola. Heads up Nicola, ⁓ our Nicola Cook. Thank you.

Victoria (37:09)
Yeah? Yeah?

Yeah, make the cook.

Jo (37:26)
we've been doing that and we, because she needs a sleep of an evening, we've been putting her to bed and going out for a walk just to give her absolute quiet. And we'd gone for a walk, I think it was about four or five days after New Year's. And as we got into the middle of Standish, which is about 15 minute walk from home, big fireworks started going off and we were like, ⁓ shoot, come home. And she was sparkle. She was absolutely fine.

Victoria (37:54)
Amazing.

Jo (37:55)
So, you know, and is that her temperament? Is that the work we've done? Probably a bit of both.

Victoria (37:57)
Amazing.

But at least you know, you're doing everything to set her up for success as much as possible. that's, but you mentioned fear periods, right? We know that dogs have fear periods. Could you talk about those and how you've tackled it, how you're going to tackle it?

Jo (38:08)
Yes. Yes.

Mmm.

Yes.

Hmm, that's a good question. It's funny, isn't it? Indie seemed to sail through that. It's like puberty never happened for Indie. Puberty is going to be different for me this time because I've got a girl and the current science, thank you to Sarah Heath who came and did a conference for me last year. We'd like her to have two or three seasons before we spay her, but our fear period tends to come in adolescence, that second fear period.

Victoria (38:26)
Yeah.

Jo (38:48)
And we can have a dog that goes from being quite confident, quite social, quite robust and resilient to being cautious or frightened of things that previously they were not bothered about. So the advice I give to my customers and what I'm going to do with jig is less is more during that time. When your dog becomes a little bit spooky and maybe backs off from people. And I remember twist barking at.

charity bags that were tied up in the street for collection. When Hay turned from hay to hay bale that kind of thing was a worry for him. When our dogs go through that and they back off and they kind of you know that huff huff under their breath kind of I'm not sure you're sure of that kind of bark the temptation when they're doing that is to do more. I need to socialize my dog more right because it's worried about those things. Actually what I prefer is less.

Victoria (39:25)
Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Jo (39:45)
ask for less, make the world safer. What I say to my clients is safeguard your dog's emotional well-being during that time. Do less. So my plan is kind of to do what I'm doing now actually, which is I'm so lucky that I have a private field that I rent annually that was twist field. At the moment, when Jig meets a dog, we meet there.

because it's a controlled environment for her. I realize how privileged I am to have that. We'll go back to that. Yesterday was the first time I've walked Jig in a place where there would be other off-lead dogs that were unfamiliar to us. And she blew my mind again. She just keeps doing this, which is wonderful. I forgive all of the mouthing and pyjama bottoms when she does things like this today. But yeah, we'll do less. So we will walk her onto his field more.

Victoria (40:26)
Hmm

Yeah, who cares about pajama bottoms? Who cares?

Jo (40:44)
We probably won't take her to restaurants and cafes. I won't take her to new places that she hasn't been before. I will walk her with people and dogs that she's comfortable with and probably spend more time bond building and connection building and training than actually going out and about very much. We'll keep our social skills up with familiar people and dogs and work on relationship, work on training. I'm hoping to do scent detection work with her.

So, and I love my K9 fitness. So there's lots of things I can do with her that don't mean she has to go out and be concerned about changes within her environment that are startling to her.

Victoria (41:29)
Everything you're saying just illustrates how much work goes into raising a puppy, doing it right. But we know that they're dogs and you could do everything right. They have their genetic predispositions. They have their breed specific traits that is still with them. And so those genetics go pretty powerful. Epigenetics are powerful too.

Jo (41:57)
Mmm.

Victoria (41:58)
the way that you raise, the way that, you know, obviously nature versus nurture. But it doesn't mean to say that she's not going to have challenges. And I think that's what I think is really important for people to understand that.

Jo (42:09)
No, no, and I'm.

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think the point of socialization, habituation and safeguarding during puberty, I think of my dog's emotional resilience and reactivity levels in terms of a bank account. And I think the more positive experience I can put in that bank account now.

and through that fear period, that when there is a withdrawal from that, which inevitably there will be, there may be an off leash dog who bumps into her and knocks her over. There may be a man who picks her up when she's not expecting it. A car may backfire as it goes past us. You can't live in a bubble with your dog. But my theory, my hope, my trust in science says that the more positive she has in that bank account,

When we need to take a withdrawal from that, she has enough resilience and positive experience to go, do you know what? That wasn't nice. But the other 200 times I saw that it was okay. So probably I'm going to be all right. And I think that's all we can do. All you can do is, is just keep going with the positive so that they have some bounce back when the negative happens, because it will, it just, there's nothing you can do about it is there.

Victoria (43:46)
No, there isn't, but you are doing everything possible now. And I know we've only just scratched the surface of what you're doing to raise her. So guys, would definitely, if you're in the UK and you can get to Wigan and you can be there on the 6th of June, I would definitely come and hear more about what Jo is doing with Jig. But you also have social media platforms. So if people kind of want to follow Jig's story, where would they go?

Jo (44:13)
Well, you can, my personal social media is a good one. So just Jo Pay on Facebook and I have a business page, which is Standish Dog Trainer. So I tend to post videos and pictures all over there. There are videos that I am saving for the conference that won't be seen anywhere else. And yeah, it's going to be great because I think it will be a really lovely platform for honest.

open conversation and discussion that's not all rose-tinted social media style. although you can get lots of catch up on social media, come along to the conference because we'll be looking at how we can hopefully create a resilient dog. Hey, I might bring her if she's resilient enough. I can bring her, can't I? It's a dog-friendly venue, I'm pretty sure. So yeah, maybe you'll bring her.

Victoria (44:59)
Maybe, yeah.

Right, hello!

Jo (45:05)
But then also, of course, in the afternoon, you're going to be talking about how we can help those dogs that have not had the best start or who have had experiences that have tainted their lives enough that they're not very comfortable living in the world that we need them to live in.

Victoria (45:19)
Yeah. And the reactivity zones approach that is very different from what most people in this industry do because it doesn't rely on desensitization and counter conditioning protocols. is, it's more of a, well, it's a different approach and you, if you ⁓ want to learn more about it, then please do come to the conference. Jo, thank you so much for sharing your incredible wisdom. I'm glad that you are still surviving this. And ⁓

Look, there's also a question that I get asked quite a lot. Is the dog academy coming back?

Jo (45:55)
I got asked that just, think, two, three days ago. I would love, I would love if it did.

Victoria (46:00)
Right.

I would love it if it did too. We don't know, probably not, but you never say never. And there's other things in the works as well. So hopefully you'll be able to see Jo and I on your screens again, but who knows, who knows? But right now you are puppy rearing and that is important. So thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and I can't wait to see you in June.

Jo (46:17)
That would be great.

Hello you two and

thank you for the invite. I know we don't have long to wait now. We don't have long. It'd be great. Really looking forward to it.

Victoria (46:32)
I know, I know. Thank

you, thank you so much. And that's it. I told you this was gonna be a great one. And for anybody who is raising a puppy right now or is thinking about getting a puppy, it is a lot of work. And with all of those, with all of that exhaustion and that thought that goes into it, there's also so much joy. That's it for this podcast. I hope you are well and I will see you again on another.

you take care.