Be Brilliant Dogs is run by Jen Smith.

Jen has been animal obsessed her entire life, growing up with her family dogs (Cocker Spaniels and a Flat Coated Retriever), cats, horses, guinea pigs and rabbits. In 2015, a Lagotto puppy called Basil walked into her life and changed the course of the future. Basil was excitable, confident and needed to engage his brain. Jen did the usual puppy classes and then set about searching for something to build her relationship with Basil and use his drive and motivation. Together they found Heelwork To Music and fell in love with dog training!

Jen began to learn about using reward-based training and teaching tricks. It wasn’t long before she booked a dog training course with the IMDT and the penny dropped – there is a science to this dog training stuff! From there Jen’s journey accelerated and so did her dedication to positive reinforcement dog training methods. Jen has since attended courses with the IMDT on Body Language, Puppy Development, Dog Learning Theory and many others. In 2020, she passed her IMDT assessment and is now an IMDT qualified dog trainer. Jen has also developed a keen interest in scentwork and has taken courses with a number of organisations. Jen is a qualified Scentwork UK instructor. She has also completed a number of courses with Canine Principles, FDSA, School of Canine Science and various other leading organisations. To read more about her qualifications and experiences, please click here.

Jen is dedicated to improving her own skills and committed to learning as much as possible about dog training. Jen has a real passion for making training fun and effective. If it’s not enjoyable, then you don’t want to do it and your dog certainly doesn’t either!