Read this before you reach out.

Dogs over 12 weeks old whose owners have run out of road. Reactive on lead, anxious, can't settle at home or in a cafe, or "knows the commands but doesn't listen". Most of my clients have already been to one, two, sometimes three trainers. If that's you, you're in the right place.

If your puppy is under 12 weeks, start with the Good Puppy Blueprint ($440, online) rather than a private session. It's built to start before puppy comes home.

Ninety minutes. The first 30 is theory: I walk you through the PACE framework, explain how I read your dog, and give you notes to take home. Then we go hands-on with whatever your dog needs that day: lead handling, a CALM setup, PLAY structure, or breaking a reactive cycle on a walk.

You leave with a plan for the week and an honest answer on whether a program is right for you. Sometimes it isn't, and I'll say so.

Yes, with full disclosure of any bite history before the first session. There's a question for it on the intake form. The work is slower and the structure tighter, but aggression cases finish the same four-week program as everyone else when the owner is committed.

Newport or Docklands, Wednesday to Saturday. Home visits are available across greater Melbourne with a call-out fee on top of the session (see fees), generally weekdays 10am to 2pm, or weekends if you're inside my service area.

Yes, worldwide. Behavioural assessment, setting up the method, and reviewing your videos all work well over a screen. Lead handling for a reactive dog is easier in person, so regional clients usually do the first session face to face when they're in Melbourne and the rest as a mix of online and in person. If you're elsewhere and want someone in the room, The Hachi Way lists trainers who deliver this method.

The initial consultation is $400 for 90 minutes, in Melbourne or online. After that, if a program is right for you, it runs as a program, paid as a package, at $400 an hour per session. The standard program is four sessions, one a week, so $1,600 all up. All prices include GST.

Ninety-eight percent of my clients, whether it's general pet behaviour, a dog that can't switch off, fear-based cases, or aggression, find the four-week program is enough, as long as they're committed. You're not paying me to train your dog each week. You're paying to learn to read and run your own dog, so the change holds for the rest of its life. By the end you shouldn't need me.

Because a single session without momentum gives you a good afternoon and the same dog on Monday. Reactivity, anxiety, and the rest are built on months or years of repetition. Unwinding that takes consistent reps over consecutive weeks, with me watching the videos in between. So the work after the consultation is a program by design. I don't sell one-off follow-ups.

Two honest options, and neither of them is a discount.

• A Hachi Way associate. The program can be delivered by one of my associates, trainers I have trained myself, working to the same method with the same expectations. Associate programs are $250 to $350 an hour depending on the trainer's experience. The initial consultation is still with me. I design the program, I supervise it, and I'm across the videos. The associate runs the sessions.
• Self-paced courses. Teach Your Dog to Switch Off ($49) and The Reactive Dog Reset ($129) cover the two problems I'm asked about most. Selective Hearing ($10) is the conversation I have in the first ten minutes of every session, written down. Read it before you book. If the reframe lands, the first session goes further. If it doesn't, you've saved yourself $390.

Yes, on programs. Two or three equal instalments, with a $20 admin fee for each extra instalment. The first instalment books session one, then one instalment falls due before each following session. Pay in full and there's no admin fee.

The sessions, your written plan, and video feedback on WhatsApp between sessions. That video loop is where most of the change happens, so use it. Equipment isn't included. I'll tell you exactly what to buy, usually a long lead and not much else, and nothing you don't need. See Recommended Gear.

Yes. Peak times, which are weekends and weekdays after 3pm, carry a 10% surcharge. Off peak is Wednesday to Friday, 7am to 3pm.

Yes. Two dogs from the same household is $50 per session on top of the standard rate, and WhatsApp support covers both. Even when only one dog is visibly the problem, the other dog's energy usually drives it. The dynamics between your dogs are part of the work.

A call-out fee on top of the session price, set by suburb. Newport and Docklands have none. Most of the inner west and north sits between $45 and $80. Put your full address on the intake form and I'll confirm the exact figure when I send through times.

I invoice by email and you pay by bank transfer. Sessions are paid before the session. Programs are paid in full at the start unless we've agreed a payment plan. The invoice is your tax invoice and includes GST.

Fill in the intake form. That's the only door in. It asks about you, your dog, what's happening, and what you've already tried, and it asks whether you've read this page. I read every form myself and reply within three business days with times. I don't book from Instagram DMs, so if you've messaged me there, the form is still your next step.

I take a limited number of new clients each week and sessions run Wednesday to Saturday only, so there's often a short wait. The form is the fastest way to find out where the next gap is.

Forty-eight hours notice to move or cancel a session. Inside 48 hours, the full session fee applies. With more than two days notice, we reschedule to a time within two weeks of the original date. Once the first session of a program has been delivered, the program fee is non-refundable; the remaining sessions can still be moved with reasonable notice. If I have to cancel, you get a full refund or a new time, your choice. The full policy is in the terms.

Usually within the first one or two sessions. The lasting change is the four weeks, because that's where your own timing and reading catch up with what I showed you in session one.

Homework, filmed, sent to me on WhatsApp. I send back specific feedback: your hand, your footwork, the dog's response in your own street. The 98% figure above is for owners who do this. If life means you can't run the homework for the next month, wait and book when you can. Don't pay for a program you won't run.

Then book the consultation. Plenty of people get what they need from those 90 minutes and the notes. What I won't do is sell you a one-off follow-up later. If you want more after the consult, it's a program.

Yes. $200 and $400 vouchers, valid for three years, redeemable against an initial consultation or the puppy program. Details on the gift page.

No. Obeying is not a relationship. I teach expectations, not commands, using one framework, PACE: PLAY, ANCHOR, CALM, EXPLORE. Each mode has clear rules and none of them blur. Get the modes holding and most of what you came in to fix resolves on its own. If you want a dog that sits on cue and still lunges at the next Labrador, I'm the wrong trainer.

Strategically, mostly in PLAY. I don't use food to distract a dog or lure a reactive dog past a trigger. That papers over the problem. Your dog just thinks, "I'm going to look at you to see if I can get the chicken," and nothing underneath has changed.

Murphy is my black Labrador, a certified assistance dog, and the most regulated dog I have ever worked with. I bring her to most reactive-dog sessions. Reactive dogs read her calm and start to mirror it. She's not a prop. She's a working partner who shows your dog what neutral actually looks like.

No, and be wary of anyone who does. Dog behaviour depends on genetics, history, environment, and mostly on how consistent the handler is. What I can tell you is what 240+ Google reviews and four years of programs say: committed owners get a different dog in four weeks. The variable is you, and I say that kindly.