About the team
Jane Spendelow – dog trainer
Jane Spendelow was a primary school teacher for 26 years along with being a breeder of rough collies for 16 years – she felt the needs of children and puppies were very similar, to feel secure, loved, comfortable, confident and happy and that when these needs were met both children and puppies were able to learn easily and happily. As a Kennel Club Assured Breeder, she is inspected and has to meet the exacting standards for breeding and rearing happy, healthy puppies and feels passionately that the health and wellbeing of dogs is of the utmost importance both as a breeder, owner and trainer.
The interest in training started over 30 years ago when Jane started working her border collie in competitive obedience; this later changed to agility and she now trains and competes in agility with her rough collies, alongside competing in breed showing at championship level. This love of training developed over the years and she was often asked to step in and help with friends and family’s dogs and was always on hand to support the ‘family’ of new owners of her precious puppies. This passion has now become a career and she is a qualified trainer with The Institute of Modern Dog Trainers. She believes completely in force free, kind, motivating methods of training as they REALLY WORK!
Jane lives in the heart of beautiful Suffolk, on the border with Norfolk near the small market town of Diss, in a 14th century former coaching inn with 4 ½ acres of land for her dogs and horses. Just as she is committed to her own puppies’ and dogs’ care and well-being, she is also passionate about yours.
Julia Kuivenhoven – Assistant trainer
Julia has been a dedicated client of Jane’s for over four years, working closely with her Norwegian Lundehund, Talyn. With a lifelong passion for dogs—especially their behaviour and training—Julia has gained hands-on experience through dog walking, daycare, and extensive personal study. Her enthusiasm and commitment eventually led her to take the next step: joining Jane as an assistant while training to become an IMDT-accredited dog trainer herself.
Henry – stooge dog, agility dog and my right-hand man!
What can we say about Henry? We couldn’t run Pup School Suffolk without him! He is our main stooge dog – stepping in to help with reactive dogs, nervous dogs, dogs that have limited socialisation with other dogs and do not understand canine body language – Henry takes it all in his stride. He is calm and relaxed around other dogs and this makes him ideal to use as a stooge. However, show him an agility course and he is anything but calm and relaxed! Agility is his passion (alongside tug toys and retrieving just about anything) and he lets us all know that with his barking. He came to competitive agility quite late (he was a successful show dog as a youngster but has decided that the show ring is a little too boring for his talents) but is now competing successfully at agility and is working his way steadily up the grades. He is also a registered PAT (Pets As Therapy) dog and visits schools, hospitals and homes to give support and friendship to people in need.
At home, Henry likes to relax – happy anywhere as long as it’s under your feet! His hobbies include licking people’s feet and eating the cat food, along with chasing a tennis ball and jumping into the back of the car if ever it is left open (well we could be off to an agility show – you never know!) The love of his life – quite simple – AGILITY!
We are also starting Ivy’s training as a stooge dog and in obedience. She has a completely different attitude to Henry as she loves to play with other dogs and is very sociable. She will be assisting Henry with the stooge work in the future.