By the Templateez Team · Licensed Attorney · July 2026

Intake Forms for Pet Businesses: Groomers, Trainers, and Vets

The pet industry does about $150 billion a year in the United States, and a huge share of that goes through small businesses: the local groomer, the independent trainer, the neighborhood veterinary clinic. These businesses handle living creatures that cannot fill out their own paperwork and cannot tell you what hurts, what scares them, or what medication they are on. Everything the professional needs to know comes through the owner, and the intake form is the mechanism that captures it. Get the form wrong, and you are working blind with an animal whose history is a guess.

Here is the problem: most pet businesses treat intake documentation as an afterthought. The groomer has a half-page form that asks for the dog's name, breed, and whether it bites. The trainer has a one-page questionnaire that asks what the dog does wrong. The vet has a generic form adapted from a human medical office that asks for "patient name" where the pet's name goes. Each of these forms is missing critical information specific to its profession, and the gaps create real risks: allergic reactions, bites, missed diagnoses, and liability exposure. Groomers, trainers, and veterinarians each need a form that was built for what they actually do, not a generic "pet information" sheet that tries to cover all three.

What Pet Groomers Actually Need to Know

Grooming looks straightforward from the outside. The dog comes in dirty, the dog goes out clean. But any experienced groomer will tell you that the intake conversation is one of the most important parts of the appointment, and it needs to happen on paper, not just verbally. A groomer needs to know the animal's temperament, its coat condition, its medical history as it relates to grooming, and the owner's specific expectations for the finished result.

Temperament and behavior fields are not optional on a grooming intake form. They are a safety requirement. Does the animal tolerate handling of its paws? Its face? Its ears? Has it ever bitten or attempted to bite during grooming? Does it have any known triggers, like the sound of clippers or being held in place? Is it anxious around other animals? Has it been professionally groomed before, and if so, how did it react? A groomer who picks up a pair of scissors without knowing the answers to these questions is taking a risk with their own safety and the animal's.

Coat condition and history matters more than most owners realize. A matted coat requires a different approach than a well-maintained one, and the groomer needs to set expectations about the outcome before they start. Your intake form should ask when the animal was last groomed, whether there are any mats or tangles the owner is aware of, and whether the owner has a specific style or cut in mind. It should also ask about skin conditions: hot spots, allergies, dry skin, flea sensitivity, and any medicated shampoos the animal uses. A groomer who uses a standard shampoo on a dog with a prescribed medicated bathing regimen is going to get a call from an unhappy owner and possibly an unhappy veterinarian.

Vaccination records are a hard requirement for any grooming business that operates in a facility where multiple animals are present. Rabies vaccination is non-negotiable. Bordetella (kennel cough) and DHPP are standard requirements for most grooming facilities. Your intake form should require vaccination dates and veterinarian contact information, and the form should clearly state that services will not be provided without current vaccination records. This is both a public health issue and a liability issue. If an unvaccinated dog in your facility exposes other animals to a communicable disease, you are going to hear from every affected owner's attorney. Our pet grooming intake form includes a vaccination verification section with specific fields for each required vaccine and expiration dates.

Dog Trainers: Behavioral History is Everything

Dog training intake forms need to go deep on behavioral history because the trainer's entire approach depends on understanding what the dog does, when it does it, why the owner thinks it does it, and what the owner has already tried. A one-line "reason for training" field is useless. "He pulls on the leash" tells you nothing about the severity, the triggers, the duration, or the context. Does he pull toward other dogs? Toward squirrels? Toward everything? Only on certain routes? Only when a specific family member walks him? The answers to those questions determine whether you are dealing with prey drive, reactivity, leash frustration, or simple lack of training, and each of those requires a different approach.

Bite history is the single most important field on a dog training intake form, and it needs to be specific. Has the dog ever bitten a person? Another animal? Under what circumstances? What was the severity? Has the bite been reported? Is there a pending dangerous dog designation? These are questions that many trainers are uncomfortable asking, but they are non-negotiable. A trainer who does not screen for bite history is accepting unknown risk with every new client. If the dog has a bite history that the owner did not disclose and the dog bites the trainer or another person during a session, the trainer's liability exposure is significant. But if the intake form asked and the owner lied or omitted, the documentation shifts the responsibility. More on this pattern in our post about how intake forms reduce liability.

Training history and goals are the other essential sections. What training has the dog already had? Group classes, private sessions, board-and-train, online programs, self-taught methods from social media? What methods were used? What worked and what did not? And critically, what does the owner actually want to achieve? "I want my dog to be better" is not a goal. "I want my dog to walk on a loose leash, come when called, and stop barking at the doorbell" is a goal. The intake form should force specificity because vague goals lead to client dissatisfaction. The owner expected one outcome, the trainer worked toward a different one, and neither party is happy at the end of the program. Our dog training intake form dedicates a full section to behavioral assessment with checkboxes for common issues (leash pulling, jumping, resource guarding, separation anxiety, aggression, house training) and space for detailed descriptions.

Veterinary Intake: The Most Information-Dense Form in Pet Services

Veterinary intake forms are in a category of their own because the information requirements mirror human medical intake, adjusted for the fact that the patient cannot speak. A complete veterinary intake form needs to capture the animal's full medical history, current medications, vaccination history, diet and nutrition, behavioral notes, and the presenting complaint, all filtered through the owner's observations and potentially incomplete knowledge of the animal's background, especially for rescue animals with unknown histories.

Medical history for a veterinary patient should include: species, breed, age (or estimated age), sex, spay/neuter status, weight, prior surgeries or hospitalizations, known allergies (food, medication, or environmental), chronic conditions (arthritis, diabetes, kidney disease, heart disease, seizures, thyroid disorders), and any previous diagnostic results the owner has. For animals with chronic conditions, the form should capture the diagnosing veterinarian's name and contact information, the date of diagnosis, and the current management plan. If the animal is transferring from another veterinary practice, the form should include a records release authorization so the new vet can request the complete medical file.

Current medications need their own dedicated section, not a single line. Animals on multiple medications are increasingly common, and the veterinarian needs to know every one of them to avoid interactions and to understand the animal's current health management. The form should capture the medication name, dosage, frequency, prescribing veterinarian, and date started. For animals on flea and tick prevention, heartworm prevention, or joint supplements, those should be captured separately from prescription medications because owners often do not think of them as "medication" and will not list them unless prompted.

Diet and nutrition is a section that many veterinary intake forms underserve. What the animal eats directly affects its health, and the veterinarian needs to know the specific food (brand and formula), the amount fed per day, the feeding schedule, any treats or table food, and whether the animal has any food sensitivities or is on a prescription diet. The rise of grain-free, raw, and home-cooked diets has made this section more important than ever because some of these diets are associated with specific health concerns (DCM in dogs on certain grain-free diets, for example). A field that simply says "type of food" with a blank line is not going to capture this level of detail. Our veterinary practice intake form includes a structured nutrition section with fields for each of these elements.

Why One Generic "Pet Form" Fails All Three

I have seen pet businesses try to use a single generic pet information form across grooming, training, and veterinary services. Sometimes it is a multi-service business that offers all three, and they figure one form is simpler. It never works well. The groomer does not need a detailed medication list. The trainer does not need vaccination dates. The veterinarian does not need a field about desired haircut style. When you put all of this on one form, you get a bloated document that nobody fills out completely, and each professional ends up asking follow-up questions to fill in the gaps that the generic form missed for their specific service.

The other failure mode of generic pet forms is liability language. A grooming intake should include a grooming-specific liability acknowledgment covering the risks of grooming (nicks, clipper irritation, matting removal, and pre-existing conditions discovered during grooming). A training intake should include a training-specific acknowledgment covering the inherent risks of working with animals, the owner's responsibility for disclosing behavioral issues, and the limitations of training guarantees. A veterinary intake should include a medical consent section covering examination, diagnostics, and treatment authorization. These are three different documents with different legal requirements. Combining them into one generic waiver waters down all three and protects nobody. This is exactly the kind of problem that generic forms create across every industry.

Emergency Contact and Authorization

Every pet service intake form, regardless of type, should capture an emergency contact and an emergency treatment authorization. For groomers and trainers, this is the person to call if the animal is injured or becomes ill during the appointment. For veterinary practices, this is the person authorized to make treatment decisions if the primary owner cannot be reached. The form should ask: if the animal requires emergency veterinary care while in your facility, do you authorize the facility to transport the animal to the nearest emergency veterinary hospital? Is there a spending limit for emergency treatment? Which emergency veterinary hospital do you prefer?

These questions feel morbid, but they come up. A dog has a seizure during grooming. A dog gets into a fight during a group training session. A cat reacts badly to anesthesia during a dental cleaning. In each of these scenarios, the business needs to know what the owner wants them to do, and they need that authorization in writing before the emergency happens. Getting verbal permission over the phone during a crisis is not documentation. A signed form is.

Putting It Together: One Form Per Service, Built for That Service

The takeaway is straightforward. If you run a pet grooming business, get a grooming intake form that captures temperament, coat condition, vaccination records, and grooming-specific liability acknowledgment. If you run a dog training business, get a training intake form that captures behavioral history, bite history, training goals, and training-specific liability acknowledgment. If you run a veterinary practice, get a veterinary intake form that captures full medical history, medications, diet, and medical consent. If you run a multi-service business, use all three. The time investment per client is minutes. The protection and information quality is worth every second.

We build profession-specific intake forms for all three of these pet service categories. The pet grooming intake set, the dog training intake set, and the veterinary practice intake set are each built from scratch for their specific profession. They are fillable PDFs, so your clients can complete them before their appointment and email them to you, and they include both an internal intake form for your records and a client-facing questionnaire with the appropriate acknowledgments and liability language.

If you handle other types of service appointments alongside pet care, you can explore our complete catalog of 164 profession-specific intake form sets. And for practical guidance on how to move from paper forms to a digital intake process without expensive software, read our guide on intake forms for mobile service businesses, which covers the unique challenges of businesses that operate outside a traditional office setting.