Behaviour intake

The first session with a behaviour case is worth about twice as much when the history arrived beforehand.

Asked in the car park it costs you the session

Twenty minutes of the hour you were paid for, and half of it forgotten by the drive home.

The answers change the plan

A dog whose “aggression” started three weeks ago at the age of eight is a vet referral, not a training plan. The screen flags sudden onset and anything the owner describes in physical terms — limping, yelping, sleep, appetite, toileting.

That is a prompt, not a diagnosis. Pain causes a great deal of what looks like behaviour, and this is the cheapest way to catch the cases where training was never the answer.

1
Send it before the first sessionTen questions, in the owner’s own words.
2
Read the flagsSudden onset and physical signs come first.
3
Talk to the vet where it points thereAnd track it on the referral screen.

FAQ

What if the owner will not fill it in?
Take it verbally at the start and type it up. The value is in having it, not in who typed it.

Is the flagging reliable?
No, and it is not meant to be. It reads the words the owner used. It catches the obvious cases and will miss subtle ones — your judgement is the actual filter.