Two lines and a dog you know nothing about
"Hi, my dog is aggressive with other dogs, can you help." That is the entire enquiry, and it is the one you get most weeks.
To answer it you need at least a dozen things: the dog's age and breed, how long they have had him, whether he was a puppy or a rescue, what the behaviour looks like and where it happens, how long it has been going on, whether anyone has been hurt, what has already been tried and with whom, whether the vet has seen him, and what medication he is on if any.
So you reply asking. They reply with half of it. You ask again. Somewhere in that thread a proportion of cases go quiet, and the ones that survive have already cost you twenty minutes before a single pound has changed hands.
The cost of collecting it afterwards
The thread. Three or four exchanges over several days, each one a chance for the owner to lose momentum or find another trainer who replied faster.
The unprepared session. When the history arrives at the door rather than before it, the first half hour of a consult is spent gathering what could have been read on the train. The owner is paying for that time and getting less for it.
The wrong booking. Without a bite history question you occasionally discover at the session that this is a case that needed a vet involved first, or one you would have priced differently, or one you would have referred on.
The cases you cannot triage. With no information, every enquiry looks equally urgent, so the genuinely urgent ones queue behind the ones that could have waited a fortnight.
The fix: intake attached to the booking
The questionnaire should not be a separate thing you send. It should be part of booking the consult, so the owner completes it while they are still motivated, and the appointment and the history arrive together.
Acuity attaches intake forms per appointment type, so a behaviour consult can carry its own questions while a class does not. Bookeo lets you add custom questions to a booking. TeamUp has registration questions. Square Appointments supports intake questions on a service. Any of them will do it. What matters is that the form is bound to the behaviour consult specifically and not asked of every puppy owner.
What belongs on the form
Keep it to what changes what you will do, and no more.
- The dog. Name, age, breed or best guess, sex, neutered or not, weight if handling matters.
- How they came to you. Breeder, rescue, rehomed from a friend, and at what age. How long they have had him.
- The behaviour. In the owner's own words, in a proper text box rather than a single line, with a prompt: what happens, where, how often, and since when.
- The trigger picture. What the dog is fine with as well as what he is not, because the exceptions are usually the most useful line on the form.
- Bite or injury history. Direct, with a yes or no and space to explain. This is the question that changes how you plan the session and it should never be optional.
- What has been tried. Equipment, previous trainers or behaviourists, online programmes, advice from the vet.
- Health and the vet. Practice name and phone number, any current medication, any recent change in health, and explicit consent for you to contact the practice.
- The household. Other dogs, other pets, children and their ages, and who else handles the dog.
- Practicalities. Address or area for a home visit, access, parking, availability, and whether they would consider an online consult.
Say when the vet comes first
A behaviour page should state plainly that some cases need veterinary input before training work begins, that sudden changes in behaviour and anything that might involve pain or illness go to a vet first, and that where you work on referral you will ask for the practice's details. Frame it as normal practice rather than a hurdle, and it reassures rather than deters. Owners read it as somebody who works properly.
Design the form so it gets finished
Long forms are abandoned on phones, which is where most of these are filled in. Group the questions into three or four short steps with a progress indicator, put the free text boxes where the owner has room to type, and mark clearly which fields are needed to confirm the booking and which can wait. Send a copy of their answers with the confirmation, so the owner has a record and can add to it.
Make the deposit and cancellation terms visible at the same moment. A ninety minute consult in the next county is an afternoon, and an owner who has paid a deposit and read the window is far more likely to be there.
What you gain
Your first reply becomes useful rather than administrative. You arrive at a consult having read the case. You can triage a week of enquiries by urgency instead of by order of arrival. You can price honestly, because you know what you are walking into. And the enquiries that used to die in an email thread turn into bookings, because the owner did the work once, at the moment they were most motivated to do it.
Where this sits
The behaviour consult booking with an intake questionnaire attached, the vet referral note and the deposit terms are standard in a dog training and behaviour website as we build it, and the same principle of collecting what you need before arrival runs through our other pet business websites, where it is vaccination records and consent. The packages are on pricing. The history exists. The only question is whether it reaches you before the session or during it.