PW: Welcome to the Woodpile! Tell us about you.

GIO: Awrufff! I’m Gio (sounds like Joe), an Alsatian alpha pup living in London UK. I’ve been a pup since 2017 but only started getting involved in the pup community in January this year.

PW: Where did you grow up?

GIO: I grew up between rural Greece and the west coast of Canada.

PW: What was your childhood like?

GIO: All in all, I had a good childhood—I was a quirky kid, not enough to get bullied, but I knew I was different from a very young age. I didn’t give my parents (too much) grief, and I found it easy to do well in school. I was part of the mountain biking and skateboarding communities, and these two communities still bring me a lot of comfort and inner peace to this day.

PW: How did you discover the world of pup play?

GIO: I started pupping as a means to have some respite from my Asperger’s (I wrote about this in detail elsewhere on Pup World). At first, I was private about it, but after my long-term poly relationship ended, I felt it was time to be more open and get to know the community.

PW: Can you describe your first experience as a pup?

GIO: Getting into a quiet, calm headspace to slow the million thoughts going on in my head all the time was a relieving, cathartic experience. I didn’t have a hood or any gear at that time, but discovering the headspace felt so right.

PW: What's the most unexpected or surprising aspect of being a pup?

GIO: I was surprised by how it helped me to find my sociable, extroverted side. When I’m in the pup headspace, my inhibitions drop, and I feel so much more confident physically and mentally.

PW: Finish this statement. “I love…”

GIO: I love my friends and pup brothers—they give my life purpose.

PW: You mentioned Asperger’s earlier. What are the unique strengths and perspectives that being on the spectrum might bring to your interactions in the pup community?

GIO: My autism lets me disconnect from my emotions—for better or worse. It can be hard when you feel things deeply inside but cannot express those feelings on the outside. Sometimes I have to ‘act’ those feelings for the benefit of others. The hood provides some relief to this because only my eyes are visible. On the flip side, I am very good in crisis situations. That disconnect allows me to maintain focus on what needs to be done without being clouded by emotion.

PW: Has pup play helped you to develop personal resilience and coping mechanisms?

GIO: As a hooman, I generally try to live my life without drawing too much attention to myself. As pups, we wear our hoods in public quite often, but in London, you could set yourself alight and walk down the street and no one would notice. Pupping in public does sometimes attract attention, but this has almost exclusively been positive. These days, I don’t mind standing out as a hooman as much as I used to.

PW: Do you see pup play as a therapeutic outlet for individuals struggling with mental health challenges?

GIO: My day job is working with clinicians to design campaigns promoting public health—but I can speak from my personal experiences with mental health. I absolutely find it therapeutic to disconnect from everyday life and spend time with other pups in a more instinctual, primal headspace. I feel much less anxious and stressed for several days afterward.

PW: What advice would you give to someone who is feeling overwhelmed or stressed within the pup play community?

GIO: The same advice I would give anyone—take a time-out, do something nice for yourself, focus on YOU. And don’t be afraid to talk to close friends—they’re there for you and you’re not a burden to them. If I feel like there is too much going on at once in my life, I find it soothing to make a checklist—ticking items off the list helps me feel in control again.

PW: Where are you located in the world? Has living there influenced your pup life?

GIO: I live in London UK but spend a lot of time with friends and family around Europe. After growing up for the most part in Vancouver, Canada, plus a short time in California, I would say this part of the world embraces the concept of ‘live and let live’ a lot more than North America—people tend not to interfere with others’ lives as much. The media love to cherry-pick footage to align with their narrative and paint a picture about other places, but I cannot remember the last time I felt genuinely unsafe anywhere in Europe, as a hooman or a pup. I feel free to express myself and live authentically.

PW: Does your pup persona ever poke his snout into your human life?

GIO: An alpha, by definition, includes an element of service pup in my view—making sure other pups are fed and watered, comfortable and feeling safe. It gives me a lot of pleasure to look after others on both sides of my life. I am also very protective of those I love.

PW: How would you describe the pup community in the UK?

GIO: In a word, diverse. Many of us are on the spectrum and quite a high proportion of the pups I know prioritise the social side of pupping over the sexual. There are local pup communities in nearly every town and city around the country and, in our experience, these communities are always welcoming and keen—even excited—to host pups from out of town. There is something for every pup here, whatever you’re looking for.

PW: Where do you see yourself in ten years?

GIO: It’s my dream to run a small B&B near the sea in Greece and teach people how to cook Mediterranean food. Obviously it would be a safe space for the pup community.

PW: When not in your pup headspace, what do you do for fun?

GIO: I ride bikes down stairs and stupid shit like that. I love urban freeriding, it gets me in a similar headspace to pupping—diverting my focus away from everyday life. I also love to travel and explore. I don’t skateboard as much as I used to, but I still do downhill mountain biking when I can.

PW: Purple definitely seems like your color. Very fetching on you. What does that color mean?

GIO: Awwrroooo! Purple is quite an authoritative colour which aligns with both my tactical and alpha sides. Like most of the pups I know, I didn’t choose my colour based on the hanky code, although I recently discovered that purple means piercing. I have a few piercings (ears, septum, nipples) so this sort of fits, but piercings to me are not a kink. I’ve been tempted to go orange though…

PW: Are you artistic? How do you express yourself?

GIO: My job is creative but outside work I do landscape photography and sometimes portraits. I also like to write and am working on a semi-autobiographical story about growing up gay in the skateboarding scene.

PW: Do you relate to and/or become any other animals?

GIO: Being a pup fits me perfectly. On the bio side, I love my cat, he’s my baby.

If I started my life over with what I know now, I would have worked harder at learning other languages when I was a kid. I’m semi-fluent in Greek and can get by in Italian and French, but I wish I could speak them all natively. It would have opened so many more doors and opportunities.

I would also tell my younger self to get out there and try more new things and explore new places. Adventures don’t always need to be planned.

Finally, understand that you cannot change how people feel about you. If there’s no chemistry between you and someone else, walk away—your energy is better spent on those who love you as you love them.

Contact Gio:

All photos by Pup Gio