The client intake process is one of the most undervalued parts of professional dog training. Done well, it gives you everything you need to design an effective program, sets client expectations correctly from the start, and establishes you as the professional in the relationship. Done poorly — or not at all — you walk into session one without context and spend time gathering information that should have arrived before you met the dog.
What to collect before the first session
A thorough intake covers four areas: the dog's background, behavioral history, the client's history with the dog, and logistics.
Dog background
Basic but essential: breed, age, weight, sex, intact or altered, and where the dog came from (breeder, rescue, shelter, found). These details immediately inform what you're likely dealing with. A 7-month-old intact male German Shepherd from a working line breeder presents very differently than a 3-year-old spayed female lab from a shelter.
Also collect: veterinarian name and contact, vaccine status, any known medical conditions, medications, and food allergies. This matters for safety, and it matters for professional documentation.
Behavioral history
This is where the real diagnostic work starts. Ask about known triggers (dogs, strangers, children, specific sounds, specific environments), previous bite history (with detail on what happened, what the bite level was, and what preceded it), known fears, and what the dog is like in the home versus on leash versus with other dogs.
Ask specifically what the client has already tried — this tells you what hasn't worked and why, and surfaces any approaches you may need to address (e.g., punishment-based methods that have made reactivity worse).
Client background with the dog
How long have they had the dog? Has anyone else in the household worked with the dog? What does a typical day look like for the dog (exercise, mental stimulation, confinement)? What previous training has the dog had, formally or informally?
Understanding the household is as important as understanding the dog. A dog that's fine in training sessions but lives in an overstimulating environment with inconsistent handling requires a different approach than a dog in a calm, structured home.
Goals and expectations
What does the client want the dog to be able to do that it can't do now? Where do they want to be in 4 weeks, 12 weeks, 6 months? Are there any hard deadlines (a baby arriving, a move, a specific event)?
This conversation also lets you calibrate whether the client's expectations are realistic, and address gaps before training starts rather than after the client is disappointed.
How to collect it
Send a digital intake form the moment a client books. This gives them time to gather information (vet contacts, vaccine dates) without doing it from memory. The form should be completable on a phone in under 10 minutes. If it's longer or more complex, completion rates drop significantly.
Tie the intake form to the client's profile in your system so you can review it before session one without hunting through emails. The data should also serve as the foundation for the dog's record going forward — you shouldn't have to re-enter anything you already collected.
The intake conversation
Even with a thorough written intake, plan 10–15 minutes at the start of the first session to cover what came up in the form and observe the dog and client interaction directly. Written answers and real behavior are often different, and that gap is where diagnostically important information lives.