Initial Behavioural Consultation

The ini­tial consultation:

• A 1.5 hour meet­ing in per­son or via Zoom
• We will work on a per­son­al­ized hier­ar­chy of con­cerns that you are expe­ri­enc­ing with your dog(s).
• These con­cerns deter­mine whether it is best have the meet­ing by Zoom, or in the home and neigh­bour­hood so that we are address­ing the real world prob­lems where they happen.
• Designing a behav­iour­al theapy plan to help your dog build impulse con­trol and com­fort around their triggers.

Prior to the con­sul­ta­tion, a detailed home pro­file form will be com­plet­ed and returned. This allows Lucinda to have a good feel for the sit­u­a­tion pri­or to our vis­it, max­i­miz­ing our pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.  Immediate tips and feed­back can often be pro­vid­ed based on the infor­ma­tion on the com­plet­ed form, so details are important!

 Once the pro­file has been reviewed, Lucinda will then ask  for brief video clips in advance of the vis­it or call, that will pro­vide her more cru­cial infor­ma­tion on body lan­guage, trig­gers in the envi­ron­ment, and inter­ac­tions with dif­fer­ent fam­i­ly members.

• Video will not be asked for of inter­ac­tions with vis­i­tors or high val­ue resources, even if these are areas of con­cern.  We do not want the dog prac­tic­ing unde­sired behav­iours, includ­ing fear or aggres­sion induced ones until we have appro­pri­ate man­age­ment tech­niques in place.

Let me help your dog be their best self!  Our focus is on chang­ing their emo­tion­al state around com­mon areas of con­cern, while pro­vid­ing insight on how your dog is pro­cess­ing the envi­ron­ment around them.

My suc­cess lev­el at turn­ing around fear and anx­i­ety based behav­iours means that res­cue groups, Vets, breed­ers and the OSPCA refer their cas­es to me.

Zoom Video Consulting
Zoom video con­sult­ing is a high­ly effec­tive way to help own­ers address con­cerns over their dog’s fear, anx­i­ety or aggres­sion issues.

• It allows Lucinda to observe the dog’s behav­iour in their nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment with­out her pres­ence being a fac­tor.  Often the pres­ence of a train­er can change the dog’s behav­iour and this vir­tu­al for­mat helps the nor­mal inter­ac­tions be observed as they happen.
• The inter­ac­tive video call gives us the abil­i­ty to set up sit­u­a­tions and address con­cerns that hap­pen on a dai­ly basis.  The bonus is that the vis­it is record­ed to be reviewed by all fam­i­ly mem­bers at a lat­er date!

Whether in your home live or by video con­fer­enc­ing, we will have a com­pre­hen­sive look at:

• the fam­i­ly dynamic
• house­hold train­ing methods
• liv­ing sit­u­a­tion for the dog
• a review of equip­ment cur­rent­ly in use.

Lucinda will assess each area of con­cern and use this to devel­op you per­son­al­ized train­ing plan. Family mem­bers that inter­act with the dog should par­ti­pate, includ­ing oth­er pets.  This is crit­i­cal in build­ing the con­sis­ten­cy in meth­ods of inter­act­ing with the dog.

Lucinda is a Certified Behavourist, and as such, the assess­ment may also be pro­vid­ed as nec­es­sary to your Veterinarian to pre­scribe appro­pri­ate medication.

For a video call, you will need sol­id wifi recep­tion and ide­al­ly a lap­top. phone or tablet for the con­fer­ence. We want to be able to be mobile in the home and into the yard and have a large enough screen to cap­ture that rel­e­vant area. The con­fer­ence should take place in an area in the home where your dog is usu­al­ly with family.

Next steps

A $100 non-refundable deposit is required to start the con­sul­ta­tion process.

After the con­sul­ta­tion, a com­pre­hen­sive assess­ment will be com­plet­ed by Lucinda, includ­ing ana­lyz­ing the behav­iours observed, meth­ods to imple­ment and build­ing train­ing skills.  If by Zoom the record­ing will be shared to download.

From there we will either set up a series of vis­its, or move into a small group class. As we progress, the exer­cis­es will be mod­i­fied to increase suc­cess and help the dog be more com­fort­able and con­fi­dent in the dif­fer­ent real world sce­nar­ios. We only increase dif­fi­cul­ty lev­els as they are able to do so!

Calm suc­cess is our goal!