Hoppers Crossing Veterinary Clinic and Hospital

Veterinary behaviour consultations can help with behaviour problems in dogs and cats such as aggression towards people or dogs/cats, separation anxiety, excessive barking, hyperactivity, urine spraying, inappropriate toileting, phobias (such as thunderstorm or fireworks), anxiety attacks and more.

Veterinary behaviour consultations are different to seeing a dog or cat trainer. Your veterinary behaviourist can also determine if there is a medical cause for the behaviour (which there often is). Veterinary behaviour consults at Hoppers Crossing veterinary clinic consist of the following:

1. A history taking session so we can understand the problem in its entirety (15 minutes).
2. An explanation of animal behaviour and how it relates to the behaviour problem (15 minutes).
3. A treatment plan that includes environmental modification, behaviour modification and potentially medication (15 minutes).

Sometimes we will have a revisit consultation 6-8 weeks after starting treatment to monitor your pet’s progress. If we decide to place your pet onto long term medication then yearly blood tests are advised to ensure that they are otherwise healthy. Please book in your behaviour consultation at a quiet time (late morning or early afternoon) to ensure that we can take the time to work through your problem thoroughly.

Remember that if the behaviour problem has been going on for a long time then your pet will probably have a lot of bad habits. This means that fixing the behaviour problem will probably not happen overnight. The success you will have is also related to how much you want to fix the problem, extra effort on your part will certainly improve your results!

If you have booked in for a dog behavioural consultation, please download and fill out our Behaviour Consult History Form and hand it in at least a day before your appointment.