Dr Dennis Wormald

dog behaviour consulting

Professional qualifications

Registered veterinarian in Victoria, Australia. Member of the Australian and New Zealand College of Veterinary Scientists (Veterinary Behaviour Chapter). PhD in canine behaviour and anxiety (Melbourne University).

Private dog behaviour consultations include:

1. Before booking your appointment, you are sent an online ABAdog behaviour questionnaire for your dog. This must be completed at least 7 days before your appointment. Once you complete the questionnaire, you will receive a customized behaviour advice report for your dog, based on your questionnaire answers. The behaviour advice report will provide some preliminary advice to get you started in the right direction before our consultation.
2. A 2 hour in-person behaviour consultation with Dr Dennis Wormald, which includes:
   • Listening to your concerns about your dogs behaviour, and asking relevant questions to fully understand the scope of the problem
   • Assessing the dog's behaviour in-person during the consultation
   • Giving presumptive diagnoses of the underlying causes of the behavioural problems
   • Recommendations on behavioural and environmental interventions that can be made to treat the case
   • A discussion around medications and other supplementary therapies that may be recommended
   • Any initial medication prescriptions required (drug costs not included). These prescriptions will last for up to 6 months, and will need to be repeated by your primary care veterinarian after that
3. Following the consultation, the client is entitled to support and troubleshooting, via email, for 10 weeks. Emails will usually be responded to within 1-2 business days, however it may be up to 2 weeks when on annual leave. After this period, we recommend you book a revisit appointment, which includes a further 6 months follow-up support period (see below).
4. Following the consultation, a follow-up phone call is included within the 10 week support period. This call (up to 30 minutes if required) is designed to troubleshoot and adjust the recommended treatments if needed.

Cost

$600 (plus travel and ABAdog fee) for single dog consultation. $950 (plus travel and ABAdog fee) if two dogs are both affected or involved in the behaviour issue.

• Non-refundable ABAdog fee of $44.00 per dog is required to make a booking (payment via credit card online) - this will give you access to the online questionnarie and provide a preliminary behaviour report upon completion.
• Travel fee is calculated at $1 per kilometer as outlined below.
• Payment of balance due prior to commencing consultation, either with cash or bank transfer
• Cancellations with less than 24 hours notice incur a cancellation fee of 50% of the price of consultation

Reassessments

Revisit consultations (strongly recommended) are charged at $450 plus travel and last up to 90 minutes. A revisit consultation is recommended at 10 weeks after the initial consultation to assess response to the treatment plan, but can be made up to 12 months after the initial consultation. This enables your dog to be assessed to measure any progress, and possibly to observe them while under the effects of any medications they may be on. After this appointment, another 6 months of email support is included. Further revisits may be recommended every 6 - 12 months depending on the case or your needs.

Travel fee

Charged based the number of kilometers for a round trip from Point Cook to your location and back. The fee is $1 per kilometre, according to the fastest route as displayed on google maps for the round trip. Please note the areas serviced - see below. Some areas may have an additional road toll fee or parking fee if required/applicable at your location. To avoid the travel fee, you may request to book our consultation at the Point Cook Dog Training centre if you wish, however this attracts a $50 venue hire fee.

Location

At your home if safe, or a suitable nearby location. Alternatively, consultation may be at a private referring clinic or trainers office with prior arrangement (venue-hire fee charged for this).

Additional requirement

A full veterinary history for the dog needs to be sent from your regular veterinarian to Dr Wormald at “dennis@abadog.com”. Once you put their email in the booking form, we will contact them 7 days before our consultation date to arrange them to send us the history. By completing the booking form you consent for them to send us this information.

Areas serviced

Suburbs West of the Melbourne CBD only - suburb must be less than 25km East of Point Cook, but there is no limit North or West - please ask if you are unsure if your area may be serviced.

Bookings

Available Mondays to Fridays from 8:30am - 4:00pm. Standard times are 9:30am and 1:30pm.

Limited Saturday availability may be available upon request.

Dr Wormald will contact you via email to organise an apointment time once you have registered via the button below:

Register for behaviour consultation