Question 1

Where do the sessions happen?

Accepted Answer

In your home, and out on your own street. Your dog's behaviour lives in your environment, so that is where we train. There is no hall, no fixed weekly class and no travel for you.

Question 2

How long is a session?

Accepted Answer

One hour, every time. That is deliberate rather than a limit — I fix one thing properly instead of everything badly. A three-hour visit that covers the house, the walk, the recall and the barking produces a household that remembers none of it by Thursday. One hour, one topic, then a week or two to practise before we add the next thing.

Question 3

Do you train my dog, or do you train me?

Accepted Answer

Both, but mostly you. A dog that only performs for the trainer is a party trick — it does nothing for you at eight o'clock on a Tuesday when the bins are out and the dog behind the fence is going off. So you do the handling and I coach you through it. It is less impressive to watch, and it is the only version that survives after I drive away.

Question 4

How many sessions will we need?

Accepted Answer

Often three, and they are spaced rather than stacked. A typical run: the first hour on rules and boundaries in the house; a week or two for you to practise; the second hour on direction and protection out on the walk; another week or two; the third hour checking it has held, which is frequently the one where the owner realises they have stopped thinking about it. Behaviour cases — reactivity, aggression, anxiety — take more than three and progress unevenly. I will give you a realistic read once I have seen your dog rather than quoting you a package before I know anything about it.

Question 5

Should the whole family be there?

Accepted Answer

Yes, if you can manage it. Inconsistency between household members is one of the biggest single obstacles to a dog's behaviour changing, and it is far easier to sort in one conversation with everyone present than to relay second-hand afterwards. Kids included, if they are old enough to follow instructions.

Question 6

What do I need to have ready?

Accepted Answer

Your dog's usual lead and collar or harness, whatever treats they like, and everyone in the household at home if possible. That is genuinely it.

Question 7

My dog goes off at anyone who comes to the door. Will that wreck the session?

Accepted Answer

No — and it is useful. If your dog loses the plot when a stranger walks in, I have just watched the exact problem you are paying me to fix, happening in the exact place it happens. Mention it when you book and we will arrange the arrival so it is not a free-for-all: dog behind a gate or out the back when I knock, and we work up from there deliberately. It genuinely does not offend me.

Question 8

We have more than one dog. Can you work with both?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and with multi-dog households you often have to. A lot of the problem is usually about the pair rather than either dog on its own — one winds the other up at the window, one guards the other's things, one has taught the other that barking is the house policy. Sometimes we work them separately first and then together. Tell me what you have got when you get in touch so I can plan the session properly rather than discover a second dog on the doorstep.

Question 9

I rent, and the yard is tiny. Does that rule me out?

Accepted Answer

Not at all. Most of the work happens inside the house and out on the footpath, and a small space is its own training problem rather than a barrier to training. Apartments and townhouses through Glenelg and the inner south are full of dogs that have never had a yard and are perfectly easy to live with. If anything, a small space makes the settle work and the daily routine more important, not less.

Question 10

What happens after the session?

Accepted Answer

You practise. You leave the hour with one thing to work on, not a list of ten, and you have a week or two to make it automatic before I come back. That is the point of the structure — nobody remembers an hour of instruction, but most people can hold on to one thing. I am contactable in between if it goes sideways, and the next session starts by checking the first thing actually held.

Question 11

How much practice do I need to do between sessions?

Accepted Answer

Less than you think, more often than you think. Five focused minutes twice a day beats an hour on a Sunday every time — dogs consolidate learning in short repeated bursts, and long sessions mostly teach a dog that training is exhausting. If you can find ten minutes a day and hang it off things you already do, the walk, meals, waiting for the kettle, that is enough for most cases. The households that stall are almost never the ones short on time. They are the ones where the practice was never built into an existing routine.

Question 12

What areas do you cover?

Accepted Answer

From the Adelaide CBD south through to Victor Harbor. That is the inner south, the southern beaches from Glenelg to Hallett Cove, the whole City of Onkaparinga, the Southern Vales through McLaren Vale and Aldinga, and the Fleurieu Peninsula including Victor Harbor, Goolwa, Port Elliot, Normanville and Yankalilla.

Question 13

Do you really travel to Victor Harbor and the Fleurieu?

Accepted Answer

Yes. I group Fleurieu bookings so a run down covers several households in the same trip, which is what makes it work at that distance. If your timing is flexible, mention it and I will get you onto the next run.

Question 14

I am just outside your area. Can you still help?

Accepted Answer

Ask. I would rather tell you honestly than have you guess. If I genuinely cannot get to you, I will say so.

Question 15

Do you cover the Adelaide Hills or the northern suburbs?

Accepted Answer

Generally not. The corridor is the CBD south to Victor Harbor, and I would rather be genuinely useful across that stretch than spread thin across the whole of Adelaide. If you are north of the city or up in the Hills it is still worth asking — if I cannot get to you I will try to point you at someone who can.

Question 16

How quickly can you come out?

Accepted Answer

It varies with how busy the week is. If your situation is urgent — a council barking notice with a deadline, or an aggression case — say so when you get in touch and I will prioritise it.

Question 17

Do you do evenings and weekends?

Accepted Answer

Yes. A lot of dog problems are easier to see outside business hours anyway — the doorbell at 6pm, the walk after work, the household at its busiest.

Question 18

What if I need to move the booking?

Accepted Answer

Let me know as early as you can and we will find another time. Things come up — a sick dog, a shift that changes, a kid with a temperature. The one that is genuinely harder to shuffle is a Fleurieu booking, because those are grouped into a single run down the peninsula, so a late change there can mean waiting for the next one.

Question 19

What is your training philosophy?

Accepted Answer

Positive and effective, and built around the relationship rather than around commands. The goal is better behaviour, a stronger bond and a calmer, happier dog — and training that the whole household can actually keep up once I have left.

Question 20

Do you use treats?

Accepted Answer

Where they help. Food is a genuinely useful tool for teaching a new behaviour quickly. What I will not do is leave you dependent on it — if your dog is still only responding when there is food visible six months later, something has gone wrong. We fade it deliberately.

Question 21

My dog is stubborn. Or dominant. Is that the problem?

Accepted Answer

Almost never. "Stubborn" usually means the dog does not understand what you are asking as well as you think it does, or that whatever it is currently doing pays better than what you are offering. "Dominant" is the weaker of the two — the idea comes from a study of unrelated captive wolves that the researcher behind it has spent decades trying to walk back. Your dog is not running a hierarchy campaign against you. It is doing the thing that has worked for it before, which is a much more useful problem, because you can change what works.

Question 22

Will you make my dog scared of me?

Accepted Answer

No. Training that relies on frightening a dog produces suppression rather than change, and it reliably makes fear- and anxiety-based problems worse. It also damages the thing that makes a dog want to work with you in the first place.

Question 23

My dog has growled. Should I punish that?

Accepted Answer

Please do not. A growl is a warning, and it is the single most useful thing your dog can tell you. Punish the growl and the underlying feeling does not go anywhere — you have just removed the warning, and the next escalation arrives without notice. Keep the growl and work on the reason for it.

Question 24

Someone told me a tired dog is a good dog. Should I just walk him more?

Accepted Answer

Up to a point, and then it backfires. Exercise helps a genuinely under-stimulated dog, but you can also build a fitter dog that needs more and more to reach the same place — and a dog that is chronically wound up does not need another two kilometres, it needs to learn how to switch off. Sniffing, chewing and problem-solving drain a dog far more efficiently than distance does. Twenty minutes of a walk where your dog is allowed to actually stop and smell things usually does more than an hour of route-marching.

Question 25

Are some breeds harder than others?

Accepted Answer

The breed tells me less than people expect, but it does tell me what your dog was built to do, and that is worth knowing. A kelpie cross in a courtyard has a job description nobody is filling, and a good deal of what looks like naughtiness is a working dog with nothing to work on. The same goes for the guarding breeds barking at the front window and the scent hounds who go deaf on a walk. None of it makes a dog harder to train. It just changes what you build the plan around, and the plan comes from the dog in front of me rather than the label on the paperwork.

Question 26

Is it ever too late to train a dog?

Accepted Answer

No. Older dogs often learn faster than puppies — longer attention spans, better impulse control. What takes more time is unpicking a habit that has had years of practice behind it, but "too old to learn" is a myth.

Question 27

How much does it cost?

Accepted Answer

A flat $110 an hour, for everything — puppies, obedience, reactivity, barking, behaviour work. No call-out fee and no surcharge for the harder cases. The only variable is how long the job takes, and I will give you an honest estimate of that on the phone before you book rather than after. For comparison, published rates elsewhere in southern Adelaide run from $195 for a single in-home session up to $450.

Question 28

How do I know whether I actually need a trainer?

Accepted Answer

If it is bothering you enough that you are reading this page, it is worth a phone call. There are two situations I would not sit on: a dog that has bitten or come close to it, and a barking complaint with a council deadline attached. Both get worse on their own and both have consequences that arrive whether you are ready or not. Everything else, ring and describe it — a conversation costs you nothing, and if I think you can sort it yourself with a bit of direction, I will tell you that instead.

Question 29

Can you guarantee results?

Accepted Answer

No, and I would be careful of anyone who does. Dogs are not appliances, and how much changes depends heavily on what happens in the weeks after I leave. What I will do is give you an honest assessment of what I think is achievable, and tell you if I do not think I am the right person for your case.

Question 30

Is this fixable, or am I going to be managing it forever?

Accepted Answer

Both outcomes exist, and which one you are looking at is among the first things I will tell you honestly. Straightforward obedience and the great majority of puppy problems genuinely resolve. Some behaviour — an entrenched fear, a strong genetic component, a real bite history — reaches a point where the honest result is a dog living a good life inside sensible management rather than a dog that is cured. That is not a failure, and it is a long way from where most people think they are heading when they ring. But it is worth knowing which one you are working towards before you start rather than three months in.

Question 31

How fast will I see a difference?

Accepted Answer

Honestly, the visible part is not the part that matters. A first session will often produce something that looks like progress — a lead that goes slack, a dog that settles — and that is the easy bit. What actually determines the outcome is the fortnight afterwards, when you are the one running it without me in the room. So I would rather set your expectations around weeks than around the session, and tell you at the end of it what a realistic timeline looks like for your dog specifically.

Question 32

What if only one person in the house is on board?

Accepted Answer

You will make progress, and it is still the most common reason progress stalls. What your dog learns in a divided household is that the rules depend on who is in the room — which is a form of training, just not the one you paid for. It also means the behaviour comes back the moment you are not there. If someone in the house thinks all of this is nonsense, it is worth them sitting in for the first twenty minutes rather than hearing it relayed over dinner. They do not have to participate. They just have to hear the same explanation.

Question 33

What if you cannot help my dog?

Accepted Answer

Then I will say so, and I will do my best to tell you who can. Some cases belong with a veterinary behaviourist. Some need a vet before they need a trainer at all. Occasionally a dog needs something structural — a change to the household, the routine or the workload — that no amount of training substitutes for. Taking your money and hoping is not a service, and a referral costs me one booking and saves you a great deal more than that.

Question 34

What if my dog needs a vet rather than a trainer?

Accepted Answer

Then I will tell you. Pain is behind far more behaviour change than most people realise, particularly in older dogs and in anything that appeared suddenly. If I think you need a veterinary workup, an anxiety-medication conversation, or a referral to a veterinary behaviourist, I will say so rather than train around it.

Question 35

Is in-home better than a group class?

Accepted Answer

For most behaviour problems, yes — because the behaviour happens in your house, with your family, on your street. But group classes are genuinely good for structured socialisation around other dogs, and there are good clubs in the southern suburbs and on the Fleurieu. They are not in competition, and if a club is what your dog most needs I will tell you.

Your questions, answered

How it works

Where I work & booking

Methods & approach

Cost & expectations

Have a look at what I help with

Dog Obedience Training

Puppy Training

Behaviour Consultations

Reactive Dog Training

Aggressive Dog Training

Separation Anxiety

Barking Dog Training

In-Home Dog Training

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