Leadchanges is Tamasine Smith
Tamasine is a Level 6 (equivalent to a University Degree) specialising and focusing on dog behaviour and psychology. She has worked (initially with horses) in the area of challenging behaviours and psychological issues for over 20 years. She specialise in the 1-2-1 personal touch providing highly individual attention to each dog and human combination she works with. Anyone who works with Tamasine will get her full attention, commitment and ongoing support with lots of feedback and guidance.
For a number of years she was also a teacher and trainer of horsemanship at her own centre, around South Africa and other countries. When working with these prey animals and often supporting quite nervous humans, Tamasine needed to work with consistency, given with calmness, confidence and compassion. She has taken that forward into working with dogs, helping her to think outside the box and offers a unique approach that isn’t always found in dog training and drawing on her experience is able to offer a real understanding when it comes to shy, fearful and nervous dogs as well as those that offer a variety of other challenging behaviours.
After working with a friend and colleague to create a self-development course called Inner Game (after W. Timothy Gallwey’s books) initially using horses as the teachers to show how much human energy and emotion affects behaviour, it seemed that it might work just as well with dogs. It did, and this developed into a workshop that helps humans learn to understand their dogs more, learn how they (the guardians) themselves influence behaviour and supports those who have lost confidence with their dogs and are struggling to start enjoying the relationship again. Discovering that often half the battle is helping dog guardians understand the “why” of their dog’s behaviour, Tamasine has developed a series of talks which cover a variety of subjects that get to the heart of why behaviours develop in the first place and how guardians can best support their dogs to have agency in their lives, make better choices and problem solve. Working this way develops the dog/human relationship to a whole new level and many say they didn’t realise that they could love their dogs even more.
Tamasine continues her studies, also attending workshops and gaining inspiration from others. One such group was DogsandAll in South Africa who prepare dogs for protection work and sniffer dog work including drug and bomb detection.
Leadchanges moved to Spain, where Tamasine helped a number of rescue charities, including helping to set up a new group in the Alhama area where she lived. She offered a foster carer training programme and still gives ongoing support with two of the charities, returning to Spain to offer training for those involved in the charity and giving behaviour support both in person and online for the dogs and their carers. If you are interested in adopting a dog from Spain you can contact ASAP here and AAR here.
Leadchanges is now based near Kenninghall in Norfolk, where Tamasine continues her dog behaviour work as well as the type of work she has done with groups such as Lab Rescue (South Africa), Ridgeback Rescue (South Africa), Axarquia Animal Rescue and Alhama Street Animal Protection (Spain). This work involves fostering, rehoming, home checks and rehabilitation.
Tamasine continues to organise workshops as well as to co-host those which are most useful in changing and improving behaviours. These workshops include Scentwork, dog Parkour and Mantrailing. These are all taught by accredited trainers and handlers. These activities help in all aspects of dog behaviour and helps people that have perhaps lost confidence in going out and about with their dogs. For those who have shy or reactive dogs, these workshops are the great next step to getting back out and about into an active dog life among supportive and understanding teachers.
Tamasine herself takes part in fun agility, trick training, TDS Scentwork, canine Parkour and Mantrailing
CPD and Qualifications
Tamasine has a Practitioner Diploma in Dog Behaviour and certificates in Canine First Aid and Dog Law with the British College of Canine Studies, all passed with distinction. She has completed Dr Ian Dunbar’s GROWL class, TalkingDogs Scent Work 1,2, 3 and 4, Dr Ian Dunbar’s SIRIUS® Dog Training course, Sarah Whitehead’s Canine Sex, Hormones and Neutering course, Sarah Whitehead’s Learn to Talk Dog course.
Tamasine is in the process of studying with ACE (Animal Centred Education) for FreeWork Assessments (she has completed Module 1) – looking at movement and gait, understanding pain and how it affects behaviour and how the work can be used to support reactive dogs. She has set up Dogs In Motion with a colleague to offer support to guardians with dogs who may be suffering from “undetected” pain.
She completed her Level 6 Advanced Diploma in Canine Behaviour with the International School for Canine Psychology and Behaviour with Distinction with her specialist area of interest (and on which she wrote her dissertation) is the canine gut and how it affects behaviour.
Conferences
2 day conference – Dr Karen Overall (MA, VMD, PhD, Diplomate ACVB) Veterinary Behaviour – 2017
3 day First UK Puppy Conference – 2018
3 day conference Psychological Welfare in Dogs – 2019
Empowered Dog Summit – all 24 days online – 2020
Online Aggression Symposium – 2024
Natural Dog Conference – 2024
ABK (Behaviour conference) – 2024
CAM (Canine Arthritis Management) – online conference 2025
ABK (Behaviour conference) – 2025
ACE Module 1 – September 2025
Emotional Wellbeing in Animals Conference – 2026