My name’s Jen. I’ve been besotted with animals since I was a child. In my primary school yearbook I wrote that I wanted to be the presenter of ‘The Really Wild Show’ and I begged my mum for over a decade to get us a dog – I was overjoyed when she eventually got us a cat, who we’re fortunate enough to still have with us today (two decades later). I spent most of my younger childhood making bug traps in the garden and ‘taking care’ of ‘pet’ snails who would have otherwise had wonderfully free lives in our garden.
I studied a BSc in Management at LSE and found my way to working with data. On a Friday, I learnt my mum was terminally unwell, and come the Sunday, she’d passed away. From then on, I knew life could be short, and I knew that I was going to spend mine working with dogs. In 2017, I took an IMDT course in Dog Behaviour and I’ve been working with dogs ever since.
My late dog, Tilly, came into my life as an 8 week old puppy. She was half beagle, half miniature poodle. I had difficulties managing her superior ability to follow her nose to the nearest unsuspecting picnickers, and managing my own anxieties around what potentially gut upsetting or toxic ‘food item’ she may or may not have snuffled. She did not struggle with anxieties around separation. She was a great listener and a big motivator to the changes I made in my working life.
In 2022, Ara came into my life. An opportunity arose for me to re-home a 2 year old rottweiler. She was destined by her bloodline to work in protection, and described as ‘too timid’ and ‘too adoring of people’ to be a natural fit for the job. Three months after rehoming her I could see her anxieties on separation weren’t naturally diminishing as she settled in. I couldn’t get her to lie down without bringing myself to the floor with her – she wasn’t comfortable with creating that small additional distance between us. I couldn’t use a toilet without Ara joining me. She didn’t feel comfortable toileting outside without me joining her. Leaving her home alone, or at home with another person, wasn’t possible. She’d pace, whine, jump up at the door and howl within ten seconds.
My life became Ara. I used to joke that Jen was gone, and I was now ‘Jara’. Owning a dog with separation anxieties was a mixed bag of emotions. I loved her, I wanted to have the patience to give her what she needed and I felt guilty that I often didn’t. I felt frustrated that progress with her training was slow. I felt frustrations build as I often couldn’t do the things I needed to alleviate them. I experienced moments of despair, and thoughts of resentment. I felt trapped, and needed space and sometimes felt guilty for feeling that way in Ara’s company. Meanwhile, Ara felt terrified to be alone and needed to be close to me. We were in what felt at times like an impossible dance together.
The journey we went on is close to my heart. Working with dogs had always been a creative, intuitive endeavour for me. Working with Ara’s separation anxieties required me to reconnect to working with data, using the results from our previous training session to adjust how our session would be that day. It allowed me to bring the skills I did use daily, into alignment with the skills I’ve learnt since 2017 working with dogs.
I decided to take an IMDT course in Separation Anxieties with Dogs, with the intention of working in this field. I feel close to, and can empathise with, the emotional journey one goes on whilst training their dog to spend time alone. I love working with people and their dogs. And I enjoy the process of building the bespoke, structured, data centred, training programme that separation anxiety training requires.
And now I find myself here, creating this website and following a new venture, ready to bring the peace myself and Ara have been able to find in life, and the separation ‘Jara’ has found, to yourselves and your dog’s lives.