FAQ
Behavioural & Specialist Work
Yes. Aggression is a speciality at CSI, and we regularly take referrals of severe cases from vets, other trainers and canine professionals across Melbourne. We work with dog-to-dog aggression, fear and leash aggression, predatory behaviour, and dogs subject to menacing or dangerous declarations. Every case is assessed individually, because behaviour that looks the same from the outside often has very different causes underneath. The honest part: the more practised and the more profound the behaviour, the longer the road, and we will tell you that up front instead of selling you a quick fix. Call to discuss your dog’s case before booking
Yes. Resource guarding, the growling, snapping or biting over food, toys, spaces, people or attention, is something we assess and work with individually. We do not hand out one-session-wonder guarantees, because guarding has a real emotional driver and the work has to match the dog in front of us. Plenty of our clients come to us after another trainer could not deliver. Call to have your dog assessed
Dog barking training is something we do a lot of, and barking is the number one complaint councils deal with. The honest first step is working out why your dog is barking, because demand barking, territorial barking, anxiety barking and predatory barking are different problems with different fixes. Suppressing the noise without addressing the cause usually just moves the problem somewhere else. We help you understand what is driving it and build the behaviour you want instead, in-home or at our Boronia facility. Call to talk through what your dog is doing.
Yes. Dogs under Menacing or Dangerous declarations are a regular part of our behavioural work, and we understand the obligations that come with a declaration in Victoria. Brad is a recognised expert witness on canine behaviour, prepares temperament evaluations used in council hearings and court proceedings, and has extensive experience with court-directed training. If your dog has been declared, or you are facing a declaration, call us and have any paperwork handy so we can give you accurate guidance.
Yes, potentially. We have done a lot of court-directed training over the years. We would need to look at the specific directions the court has given, and in some cases speak with your legal representative, to make sure the training we do gives you maximum benefit for your situation. Call us and have the court documents handy.
Yes, anxious dogs can be trained, but the approach has to be built around the anxiety. A dog affected by anxiety often struggles to learn, process and retain new information, so we assess each dog’s ability to learn while anxious on a case by case basis, and we will talk it through with you if it becomes relevant to your dog. The goal is not to push through the anxiety, it is to work with it so your dog can actually take the training on.
Yes. Reactive dog training is core work for us: the dog that lunges, barks, spins or shuts down on lead, usually out of fear or frustration rather than true aggression. We do not try to suppress the behaviour and call it fixed. We work out what is driving it, then build your dog’s ability to cope so the trigger stops being a crisis. Reactivity and aggression sit on a spectrum, so the first job is always an honest assessment of which one you are actually dealing with. Call us to discuss your unique situation.
Yes. Separation anxiety is one of the areas we work in most, and one of the most misunderstood. You cannot punish or obedience your way out of it, and you cannot train the anxiety out of a dog. What you can do is build the dog’s capacity to cope, step by step, so that being alone stops being a crisis. We assess how your individual dog learns while anxious, then build a plan you can actually run at home, because this is work that lives in your daily life, well beyond a single training session. Call to talk through what your dog is doing.
Yes. CSI is a professional canine behaviour consultancy, and Brad Griggs works as a behaviourist on serious cases, including behaviour that other trainers refer on. People search for a “dog behaviourist,” a “dog psychologist,” or a “canine behaviourist,” and the work behind those words is what we do: assessing why a dog behaves the way it does and changing it. That is different work to drilling obedience.
Brad is also a recognised Expert Witness on canine behaviour across multiple jurisdictions, and the only member of the Australian dog training industry to have given evidence to the 2015 parliamentary inquiry into breed specific legislation. Call to discuss your dog.
A canine temperament evaluation is a structured behavioural assessment used for dangerous and menacing dog declarations, council hearings, court proceedings, and pre-adoption or pre-purchase decisions. CSI prepares reports ranging from brief summaries through to detailed legal documents. Brad Griggs is a recognised expert witness and respected subject-matter expert in canine behaviour across multiple jurisdictions, engaged by both prosecution and defence. Call to discuss what your situation requires.
Littermate syndrome describes the problems that can develop when two puppies of a similar age are raised together and bond more to each other than to their people, which can show up as anxiety when separated, poor focus, fear, or fighting between the two dogs. It is real, it is common, and it is very workable with the right plan. We help Melbourne owners structure the dogs’ upbringing so each puppy develops into its own confident, trainable dog. If you have two young dogs and something feels off, call us early, because this is far easier to shape sooner than later.
Most dogs can be helped to live much better lives, and some behaviour problems can be resolved completely, but a dog is not a crooked shelf or a broken alternator, so “fixed” is the wrong way to think about it. We focus on meaningfully addressing the issues you and your dog are facing and producing better outcomes for everyone involved. How far a dog can come depends on a lot: how profound the issue is, how long the behaviour has worked for the dog, and how much intelligent effort the owner puts in. As a rule, the more profound the issue, the longer and harder the road. We will be honest with you about that from the start.
No, and anyone who claims they can is either misinformed or misleading you, so be careful. A better question is whether we can positively change the behaviour of a dog that is acting out of anxiety, and the answer to that is yes, very often we can. We do it by building the dog’s capacity to cope rather than trying to erase a feeling, which is not something training can do.
Puppies & Everyday Training
Yes. Alongside one-on-one coaching, which is still our core format, CSI now runs small group classes and programs at our Boronia facility, including PUPDEV puppy development, Heelwork, Scent and Search, and Attuned Play. Puppy school is the easiest time in a dog’s life to build the right foundations, so getting your puppy in early pays off for years.
Yes. We help Melbourne owners raise puppies properly from day one: toilet training, crate training, settling, handling, early manners and the social foundations that prevent problems later. Toilet training and crate training are two of the things owners struggle with most, and both are far simpler with a clear plan and good timing. Start early, because the habits a puppy builds now are the ones you live with later.
Yes. We coach Melbourne owners to build reliable, real-world obedience: a dog that listens because it wants to, not one that performs out of fear of consequence. We are not interested in obedience for its own sake. We are interested in a dog you can actually live with and take places, which is what good obedience is for.
Yes, we can help you with this. Recall is one of the most common things owners struggle with, and it’s very much a trainable skill. The foundation of this is building so much value in coming back that your dog chooses you over the distraction in front of him, rather than relying on nagging or luck. We coach reliable recall at our Boronia facility and proof it under real distraction, so freedom for your dog means peace of mind for you. Stubborn, high-drive and easily distracted dogs are welcome. Call Today.
Yes. In-home behavioural consultations are available across Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, used where the problem is specific to your home environment or where travel is not practical for the dog. Call to discuss your situation and confirm we cover your area.
For a stable, well-motivated adult pet dog of one to three years with no serious behaviour problems and an owner who does the work between sessions, expect around five to six weeks to get a solid grasp of basic obedience with some real reliability starting to show. That is a guideline, not a promise, because a lot moves the timeline. Starting younger is faster. An older dog is less flexible. Past poor training adds time. Established behaviour problems or emotional issues add more. And the single biggest variable is how much intelligent effort you put in outside our sessions together. We will give you an honest read once we know you and your dog.
Almost certainly not, and that is the point. Our aim is to teach you to train and manage your own dog so that maintaining the training becomes part of your normal life, and the vast majority of owners we work with reach exactly that point. If you do need a hand down the track, we are here. But we are training you as much as your dog, on purpose.
Training Practice & Philosophy
It’s called Build More Dog®, and it’s our trademarked philosophy and practice. We reject the idea of defining what we do based on “group think,” because the right approach should change from dog to dog, and even for the same dog as they mature, develop and the work progresses. Our focus is on building dogs to be motivated, engaged and enthusiastic in their work. From there we build behaviours our dogs love performing, and with time and experience we progress towards those behaviours being understood by the dog as non-negotiable. This kind of foundation does most of the heavy lifting for the change owners are seeking. There are situations where it is wise to create inhibitions around certain behaviours, for the well-being of the dog, their family and the community. We do that in collaboration with the owner, in a least intrusive, minimally aversive way that is fully compliant with our own ethical framework and relevant state law. A trainer who is locked to one tool, or who defines themselves by what they refuse to consider, is limited in who they can help and how much advantage they can offer a dog. Our ethics require us to stay open-minded, curious and truly centred on aligning the interests and wellbeing of the dogs and owners we work with.
Building and maintaining strong positive emotion in our training work has a huge protective benefit for the dog that spans across many aspects. A dog that is an enthusiastic, willing learner performer experiences training very differently. You can see this undeniably in the way they look and perform. – and it’s very different to a dog that is thanklessly forced to do things. Without motivation, training becomes a joyless activity for dog and owner alike, and it does not hold up into the long term. It’s also a fact that owners that love the training process, and experience that process as a truly connected experience with their dog, will tend to get results faster, and continue that training into the long term. This is why we train the way we do.
Yes to all three, heavily – as well as play and of course physical affection. We use food rewards frequently, and our methods lean hard on teaching you to create, maintain and apply both verbal and mechanical markers, because markers help a dog learn faster and help you develop the timing that good training depends on. Positive reinforcement (or withholding that reinforcement) is the backbone of how we first build the behaviour you want to later rely on.
Maybe, and probably. Some dogs are well motivated by things other than food that we can put to work. That said, most people who object to food do so without a solid basis for it, and with a little foresight we use food every day to build great responses without any cost to the relationship between dog and owner. In fact we usually start improving that relationship through how we use food. If your dog genuinely has little drive for food, that still will not stop us working together, and often a few small adjustments turn a “not food motivated” dog into one that works hard for it.
Yes, ecollars are legal to use in Victoria, provided a few key rules are followed, and yes, we use them with some clients, sometimes. There is a lot of misinformation online about electronic training collars. A tool on a dog is not a sign of skill. A trainer who reaches for one to cover a gap in their reward-based training is telling you exactly who they are. The clients who do use one simply integrate it into the quality training work they have already done with their dog. The ecollar is not used to teach the dog anything new. Before any client uses one, we educate them on the relevant legislation and their ethical responsibilities, and CSI follows a strict process to keep both them and us fully compliant. Not every client is prepared to do the foundation work required to integrate an ecollar, and the choice to do so is made collectively between us as the coach and them as the trainer. An ecollar is just a tool, and like any tool it suits some tasks and not others
We use slip collars and flat collars most often, and check chains more rarely. Regardless of the training tool/s an individual is using in their work we teach all clients to apply them in a least invasive, minimally aversive fashion. We use head collars only rarely, because they generally offer little advantage over other options. We do not use pinch collars with our clients at our training center, in order to remain compliant with legilsation. If training interstate we may use pinch/prong collars only where it is legal to do so. The principle is the same across all of it: the right tool for the individual dog and situation, used lawfully and well, never a tool for its own sake.
No, we do not prescribe medication, and no, your dog does not need to be on medication to train with us. We are not veterinarians, and we cannot direct you to either cease or start medication a vet has prescribed to your dog. Where we believe medication may genuinely help, we refer you to a fantastic veterinarian experienced who is a themselves an skilled trainer with behavioural medication experience. At your or the vet’s request, we can liaise with them and offer our observations in a collaborative way. Any decision to medicate is entirely the owner’s to make. In exceptional cases where a dog’s welfare is at stake and medication is absolutely warranted but refused against veterinary advice, we may decide to excuse ourselves from an existing training relationship on ethical grounds.
In most cases, yes. The term “pitbull” is commonly used for a broad type of dog, short-haired and generally muscular with a broad head, and we take all ‘pitbull’ related enquiries in that spirit. The important context: there is strong, peer-reviewed evidence that visual breed identification is wildly unreliable, and Brad holds the national Canine Breed Identification accreditation (91521NSW) and has seen first-hand how flawed visual ID is. Where we can help, we will. The one hard limit is our insurer’s terms: any dog with a verifiable pedigree matching its microchip and listed as a Japanese Tosa, Dogo Argentino, American Pit Bull Terrier, Presa Canario or Fila Brasileiro cannot train with us or be on our premises. Call us and we will talk it through honestly.
We work hard to keep open channels of communication, and as coaches we believe that is a conversation that should be addressed if and as it comes up. A big part of the results you get comes from a genuine working relationship with your trainer, so if that is not there, it is the wrong fit and worth knowing early. In 22+ years of practice that has popped up only a handful of times, so the odds are we will work together just fine. Spend some time on our social channels and listen to our podcast for a while first – you will get a clear feel for who Brad is and how CSI works before you ever book.
Protection, Sport & Bitework
Possibly, but that’s would require extensive and nuanced discussion to enter into. Most people badly underestimate the work involved by us, and the responsibilty they would be taking on for themselves. A truly competent, well trained protection dog is not some aggressive dog that has been “toughened up” through some kind of mistreatment. That’s a complete myth. Selection of the dog is paramount, because most dogs are simply not suited to such a role. Suitable dogs are generally bred for that kind of role and purposely, carefully developed towards suitability from puppyhood. We can help with many parts of that development – the most difficult parts – and we will flatly refuse anything that falls outside the Code of Practice and the legislation that governs our business. If you are serious, reach out through our contact page and tell us your goals, and we will continue the conversation from there.
No. To any knowledgeable professional, training a dog for a sporting curriculum is very different to training a dog for a personal protection role. This is an area Brad knows from the inside: he was the only person from the Australian dog training industry to give evidence to the 2015 Parliamentary Inquiry into the legislative and regulatory framework relating to restricted
breed dogs, which directly interacts with the ‘dangerous dog laws’ that potentially restrict this work. In our informed view, Victoria carries some of the most regressive and reactionary dog-related legislation in the country. Victorian law takes the position that engaging in the bitework components of those sports puts the handler or trainer in breach of legislation, and that even a single session can technically see a dog Declared as Dangerous. Any and all sport-related work CSI conducts is done in full compliance with relevant state legislation. There is still a great deal of dog sport that Victorian owners can enjoy with their dogs, and from which those dogs benefit greatly. We are happy to talk through what is possible. Reach out to discuss.
No. Guard dogs can deter certain security risks, but for most businesses they are a poor return on investment, and people routinely overestimate what a guard dog can actually do to protect a premises. There are also significant legislative requirements that come with owning one, or contracting one to be placed at your business. If you are weighing up this choice please do your research on those obligations first. We are available to consult with you if you need an impartial expert opinion to help you shape your decision.
Yes, absolutely. Playing tug and using a variety of toys to develop your dog’s grip, motivation, focus and engagement is perfectly within the law – and likely beneficial to your dog and training into the long term. The line to watch in Victoria is this: if that item is worn by or attached to a person, rather than held, you move into territory that can breach legislation and risk your dog being declared dangerous. As referenced prior Victorian dog laws are pretty ridiculous, but this one is very easy to stay on the right side of. No problem.
Getting Started, Cost & Location
It depends entirely on your dog and what you are trying to achieve, so the honest range is wide. At one end, group classes start from around $40 to $50. At the other, a specialised behavioural or court report can run $1,700 or more. Most one-on-one training and behaviour work sits between those two points. Any trainer who quotes you a flat price before understanding your situation is guessing, and that spread is exactly why we often start with a call rather than a price list. We’ll work with you to find out which of our services best fits your needs, then tell you plainly what it involves and what it costs, with no surprises.
CSI operates from Melbourne’s first full-time indoor dog training facility at 1/5 Wadhurst Drive, Boronia, Victoria 3155, in Melbourne’s south east. Clients come to us from right across Melbourne and beyond for facility-based training, classes and behavioural work, and we also offer in-home consultations across the eastern suburbs where the situation calls for it. Call us to confirm the best option for your dog and your area so we can get you started.
Yes. Online dog training by phone or video is available anywhere in Australia or overseas, and we’ll chat with you to first to make sure it’ll be a good fit to meet your expectations. Should we work out together that working remotely will not do your dog or goals justice, we’ll tell you so directly rather than take the booking. These are structured programs built around your dog, not generic videos. Book a call to talk it through.
No. CSI operates by appointment or scheduled event only, and our offices are not open to the public without an appointment. The quickest way to start is to book a call.
We operate Monday to Saturday, by appointment or scheduled event. On weekdays we generally run from around 10am to 9pm, and on Saturdays from 9am to 4pm, closed Sundays. Our hours can shift with teaching and travel commitments, so if in doubt just give us a call. Alternatively, check out the footer of our website to see our current hours there.
We provide both options. We do our best to answer when we can, and get back to those that leave us a message. Some folks prefer to just have us call them around a certain time, so we provide them that option too.
When you book a time for a call we put aside time beforehand to make sure that we are prepared for our chat, and we put aside after to make appropriate notes and send any follow up information we commit to sending.
Yes, of course. If you have a quick question and we are free, we are happy to answer on the spot. If we are tied up, we may text back and ask you to book a call so we can give it proper attention. For anything involved, or if you have several questions, booking a call is the best path, and we also work hard to give thorough answers by email through our contact page.
The fastest way to reach us is the contact form on our contact page, which helps us give you a considered reply. You can also use the email listed on that page to email directly. For anything detailed about your dog, the contact form is best, because it prompts you for the information we need to give you a much more considered answer.
Facility, Events & Policies
Yes. As a registered Domestic Animal Business we are bound by the applicable Code of Practice, so every dog entering our facility and/or working with us must have proof of current vaccination. The schedule for vaccination varies based on age and/or vaccination type, and your vet can inform you if your dog’s up to date in that regard. Alternatively a vet-issued letter with current titre test results confirming an appropriate level of immunity. We will need to see that proof at your first session.
No. The relevant Code of Practice does not allow us to train a dog that is not fit to train, and doing so would be unethical. Once your dog has recovered and is fit, we are glad to get started. If you have an existing training package with us and your dog is sick just provide us with a note from the vet so we can help work out a solution around the recommended layoff period from training.
Yes. Our Boronia facility is available for hire for suitable workshops, seminars and training events. Tell us what you have in mind through the contact form and choose “Facility Hire” as your enquiry type, and we will work through the details with you to see if we can create a solution.
Yes, so long as it’s by arrangement with us. Many of the events we run involved ‘working spots’ where folks attend to participate with their dogs. In those cases all dogs attending must meet the relevant vaccination status and you’ll be required to manage them appropriately as a condition of participation. in those cases we ask owners not to bring dogs that are not scheduled to take part.
Not every event is designed for dogs to attend though. Where this is the case it will be clearly stated in the event description, so it pays to read carefully. If you’re in any way confused or unsure it pays to reach out for clarification.
No, not by default. Your dog needs to remain securely contained in your vehicle unless you have been given other instructions in writing before the day. Where a dog is granted permission to be crated inside, it is entirely the owner’s responsibility to make sure the dog does not disturb the presenter or other participants, otherwise we may have to revoke any given permissions.
We love that kind of work. Start by filling out the contact form and choosing “Hosting a CSI Workshop or Seminar” as your enquiry type, and we will reach out to continue the conversation and make it happen. Alternatively you can give us a call.