About Canine Strategies

Canine Strategies was formed by Matthew Bottomley following a long and distinguished career in the Guide Dog world, including considerable international collaboration and work as an International Guide Dog Federation Assessor

With his ongoing love of our four legged friends (and the people that work with them), coupled with extensive senior management experience, there was a recognition that his expertise, knowledge and experience could prove invaluable to organisations and individuals across the world, and not just limited to the Assistance Dog environment.

Matthew identified the need for a strategic service offer. Often insufficient time or value is assigned to planning strategic direction, and despite all best efforts, projects, efficiency, morale and ultimate success can be adversely affected

With skills and expertise in breeding, training, operational delivery and management, as well as additional experience in media, communications, fundraising, facilities design and volunteering, Canine Strategies was born.

Canine Strategies is there to help any organisation or individual to make tailor made plans for success, specific to their own aims and goals and mindful of environmental and cultural differences, budgetary constraints, existing infrastructure and capacity for change.

Please do get in touch for a no obligation discussion of how Canine Strategies may help you, your team and/or your organisation and your dogs fulfil their potential

For testimonials, please see the foot of this page

Testimonials about Matthew Bottomley

  • International Guide Dog Federation Visionary magazine

    Throughout Matt’s career, he has been an immensely valued and respected colleague, mentor, and friend. His passionate enthusiasm for producing healthy, happy puppies to start their journey to become guide dogs has always been coupled with genuine empathy and sensitivity towards people.

    Full article - Visionary Magazine Page 11

  • French Federation of Guide Dog Schools

    Hi Matthew, On behalf of our delegation from the French Federation and our National Breeding Centre, I would like to heartily thank you for the warm welcome and the perfect organization of the visit you and your team kindly accepted to organize for us on 23 and 24 September . We learned a lot from your practices of mobility services, communication, fund-raising, training and breeding, which is a great help in our reflection on the development of the guide dog movement in France.

  • Crufts Main Ring Demonstration 2013

    Thanks for making the words sing on stage...really enjoyed working on this and it was great to see it all come together.

    Bharat Patel

    Producer

    See Crufts Main Ring Demo 2013 in full

  • Fundraising

    ‘Thank you for delivering a great experience for our potential major donors yesterday. You did a great job, delivering exactly the right balance of information and the team all made them feel exceptionally welcome’

    Pete

    COO Guide Dogs

  • Conference participation

    ‘Hi Matt, I just wanted to say another huge thank you for your time on Tuesday afternoon during the tour. Everyone has reported it as the highlight of the conference and I personally found the whole thing fascinating. Your obvious expertise and enthusiasm were really evident during the tour and everyone came away feeling much more informed about the breeding process and the role of National Breeding Centre’

  • Presentation

    ‘An amazing presentation by Matthew to steering group, Tim you would have been extremely proud! I’ve never heard one presented so succinctly before and only one question asked!!

    We progress to SMC (Strategic Monitoring Committee)!!!Brilliant!!

    Sian

    Project Manager

  • Facebook Live

    “Matthew was a fabulous host for the first in a series of four live Facebook events in July.

    He clearly has a natural flair for presenting and public speaking as he spoke so eloquently about the breeding programme here at guide dogs and introduced the audience to some of our newest puppies too.

    The video post reached nearly 40,000 people, and there were a whopping 243 comments and questions, all answered with compassion and expertise. We received great feedback from those that watched the live event.

    Thank you, Matthew, for being a super star host!”

    Joanna

    Fundraising

  • International Collaboration

    I just read some of the articles and of course yours.

    Would like to thank you for both writing so nicely but not less important to thank you as one of the younger/smaller schools in comparison to GDBA for a example to thank you of course for being so kind and open to help us and so many others in order to be better for our 2 and 4 legged clients!

    Noach

    Israel Guide Dog School