ABOUT JO WILSON BSC (HONS)
Hi, I’m Jo
Dog School for Humans exists because of a Boxer called Kipper.
MY FIRST BOXER
Kipper. The dog that changed my life.
I was 25, a single parent of two young children, and thought I was getting a dog from Boxer Rescue.
Turns out it wasn’t Boxer Rescue. It was someone posing as them and selling a dog who had obviously been very badly treated.
Kipper was so thin you could see his spine. He had bald patches and fleas.
He came with a metal choke chain and a shabby lead. That was all he had.
He didn’t know how to play with toys.
He didn’t know what to do inside a house.
He was so reactive I couldn’t walk near a man with him, never mind a dog.
He had two behaviours. Cower or snarl.
My first Boxer.
Kipper.
The dog that changed my life.
COMPLETELY OUT OF MY DEPTH
I had no idea what to do with him
I loved him, but I was completely out of my depth.
I was trying to stop him being that knob, and I didn’t know how.
This was the 90s. There was no Google. No Facebook groups. No YouTube.
So I went to the library.
The books told me about dominance. Being the pack leader. Choke chains. Prong collars. Corrections.
If Kipper did something wrong, I needed to make sure he knew I was in charge.
But I had a frightened dog who already had good reason not to trust people.
How was hurting him going to make him trust me?
So I didn’t
KIPPER AND ME
We figured it out together.
I tried to understand what he was frightened of.
I stopped expecting him to know what I wanted.
We went slowly.
I gave him time. I gave him kindness.
He learned to trust me.
Kipper wasn’t suddenly a perfect dog. I wasn’t suddenly a perfect dog owner.
But we figured each other out.
That changed everything.
I wanted to know why.
Why dogs behave the way they do. Why fear changes behaviour. Why some things make behaviour worse. Why we humans behave the way we do too.
So I studied it.
WHY DOGS DO WHAT THEY DO
I wanted to understand why
I’d been working with dogs since I was 15, when I started working in boarding kennels.
Kipper sent me down a different path.
I went to university and studied psychology, brain and behaviour, animal behaviour and human behaviour, eventually gaining my BSc (Hons).
The more I learned, the more I realised something.
Dog training isn’t just about training dogs.
It’s about training humans too.
Your dog can’t read the book.
They don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing.
They haven’t read the bit that says they should have mastered loose-lead walking by Tuesday.
They’re being dogs.
THIS IS THE IMPORTANT BIT
That’s why it’s Dog School for Humans
I don’t want you sitting at home feeling like I did with Kipper.
I don’t want you thinking everyone else has a lovely, well-behaved dog while yours is making you look like a dick in public.
I don’t want you thinking you’ve failed because something that was supposed to work hasn’t worked for you and your dog.
I want you to understand your dog.
What’s happening.
Why it’s happening.
What you can do about it.
Then we work on it in small, manageable steps that fit into your life.
No judgement.
No expecting perfection.
No making your dog frightened of getting it wrong.
Just humans learning to understand the dogs they’ve got.
That’s what I needed with Kipper.
And that’s why I created Dog School for Humans.
READY TO GET STARTED?
Let’s make life with your dog easier.
Find the support that’s right for you and your dog.