Behavioural Services
What are Behavioural Services?
Behavioural services include training, one-on-one behavioural consults, and veterinary behavioural medicine. These may address anything from basic training (e.g. sit, stay, loose-leash walking) to working with specific behavioural problems (e.g. reactivity, excessive barking, resource guarding).
Training schools cover basic (and in some schools more advanced) general training. Behaviouralists work one-on-one with you and your pet, and behavioural veterinarians can assess and address the medical side of behavioural problems.
What Should I Look For in Behavioural Services?
The service you may access will depend on what you want to work on. The main thing when choosing a service is to ensure that the trainer or veterinarian promotes positive, force-free training techniques.
Using a force-free approach fosters a positive relationship between you, your pet, and their response to training. Negative reinforcement or punishment, from things like choker chains and prong or shock collars, to pushing a dog’s hind down to get them to sit harbours negative associations. This can lead to reactivity or more adverse behavioural problems, as they are experiencing and responding to distressing stimuli.
Approaches like negative reinforcement/punishment and alpha theory/pack theory have been debunked by current research as being inaccurate and harmful. More information is available on our FAQ page.
Most behavioural problems stem from our pets trying to communicate with us that their needs are not being met or that something is making them uncomfortable. By working to understand and address what they are trying to tell us, we can help change the behaviour in a way that benefits both the pet and the owner.
Where Can I Find Help?
You can find behaviouralists through the Delta Institute, which is the accrediting body for force-free, positive reinforcement trainers who have completed a nationally accredited training course.
Behavioural veterinary services are offered through many of Canberra’s vet clinics, as well as two dedicated behavioural vet practices, Canberra Behaviour Vet and Canberra Animal Behaviour Solutions.