Behaviour Consultations
What we offer
One on one training help and advice.
Our consultation service is a one on one in home (or relevant location) session designed to modify or eliminate problem behaviours, improve obedience, better your understanding of your dog, and help you understand how to train your dog moving forward into the future.
A initial session runs for approximately 2 and half hours and can be scheduled whenever best suits you and your family, any day of the week.
Got Questions? FAQ below or contact us
What can we help with?
ANXIETY/AGGRESSION
We we provide help addressing general demeanor and the behaviours associated to fear/anxiety/dominance/instinct, whether directed toward humans, dogs or other animals. Also including separation anxiety and associated property damage.
BASIC OBEDIENCE
For help on learning and consistency with basic commands such as sit, drop, stay, come and heel. Especially where your dog may be able to do these things sometimes but you are having trouble achieving reliability in specific scenarios either at home or out in the world.
PROBLEM BEHAVIOURS
Addressing specific problem behaviours that you can’t seem to budge such as lead pulling, jumping up, barking, excessive chewing, excessive digging and obsessive compulsive behaviours such as tail chasing.
SPECIFIC NEEDS
Teaching of precise behaviours that you may need to make life a little easier. Examples might include teaching a dog to accept eye drops or nail clipping, helping a fearful dog learn to use a dog door, or and older dog needing to learn how to climb a ramp into a car.
The above is by no means an extensive list of what we may cover in a consult. Every session is tailored to each individual case and nuances in it. If you want to ask about a specific concern get in touch with us and we’ll be happy discuss it with you and work out what we can do.
We travel anywhere within Victoria, however there is an additional travel cost if you are further than 30km from our home base in Greensborough.
Let us know where you are and we’ll confirm a price based on the travel time.
Absolutely, we often conduct sessions in different locations and contexts based on the aim of that individual session.
Some examples:
- Visiting a local market to work on obedience and socialising in a busy environment with many people and dogs.
- Training along a bike track for a dog reactive to cyclists
- Attending a group training class, so that you have continuous one on one support where your dog struggles to fit into to that situation.
While a dog’s age has some bearing on how it learns certain things, and older dogs may have problem behaviours more reinforced than a pup might, age is not a factor in whether or not a dog’s behaviour can be improved.
We have worked with plenty of “senior citizens” who have reformed on significant problems such as ongoing dog aggression or fear.
There is no one size fits all method in training dogs. That said, we are balanced trainers, which means that we operate from the position that generally dogs need both positive reinforcement for good behaviours and boundaries/consequences relating to bad ones if they are to learn effectively.
In each individual case, what this looks like can vary a lot. Every dog has its own individual response to food, attention, lack of attention, verbal consequence, physical consequence etc.
Our position isn’t to tell you one method is right or wrong or that you must do things a certain way, we advise on the full spectrum of possible methods and each of their advantages and potential pit falls in your case.
This isn’t a straight forward question. Often we can clearly demonstrate in a session that your dog can and will behave differently very quickly.
Whether that improvement is ongoing and consistent depends on the nature of the problem, and what time you can put into training your pet into the future.
Dogs are always learning, every second, and problem behaviours don’t exist in a bubble. Dogs behave a certain way (good or bad) because it fulfills a base need that they have, and ensuring that good behavioural patterns are reinforced, and bad ones are not, is task that lasts for the full life of your pet.
An initial in-home session costs $349.
*Consultations may be subject to travel fees.
It depends on the nature of the problem and the level of ongoing support you want.
Simple problems like lead pulling are usually solved in a single session without further help being required. However if you have a fearful and/or reactive dog you may need or want follow up help as these behaviours are not static and can be impacted by things outside your control as a pet owner, and addressing them successfully requires a certain amount of learning and experience in the person doing the work.
We offer both follow up sessions similar to the initial consult, and in some cases it can be helpful for dogs within our service area to join our walking groups as a cost effective regular contact with an experienced handler.