We’re here to make dog behavior help feel clear, safe, and accessible.
Below you’ll find answers to the most common questions from new families exploring Aila.
Aila is a 24/7 AI dog behavior guide built by the behavior experts at Instinct Dog Behavior & Training®.
She provides kind, personalized, evidence-based support anytime you need it — whether you’re navigating reactivity, separation anxiety, puppy behaviors, big emotions, or everyday manners.
Aila uses the same standards and methodology our INSTINCT behavior consultants use in real life. She can be used as a self-help resource, or in conjunction with a human trainer.
Aila isn’t a generic chatbot — she’s trained, supervised, and guided by experts.
What sets her apart:
She’s not guessing. She’s building from real insight and real oversight.
Aila is trained to support a wide range of behavior needs, including:
If something requires human attention, Aila will tell you and help you connect with a coach.
If your dog’s assessment shows significant safety concerns, Aila will automatically pause and involve a human behavior expert before continuing. Your wellbeing and your dog’s safety always come first.
Aila is designed to support your training journey, whatever that looks like.
You can use Aila entirely on your own, or alongside:
She helps you stay on track between sessions, supports your understanding, and gives you clear guidance anytime.
Absolutely.
You can:
Aila is part of the INSTINCT team, and, as desired, part of your dog’s broader care team. She never works alone.
The behavior assessment is the same one completed by all INSTINCT clients. It gives Aila the full picture she needs to support you safely and effectively, just like a human behavior consultant would.
It covers:
Effective, tailored advice starts with a deep understanding of your dog and your life.
About 45 minutes, broken into small sections you can complete at your own pace.
You can pause anytime, and your progress will save automatically.
No. You can pause and return anytime.
It’s okay to answer with your best guess. If needed, Aila can help you adjust and refine down the road.
You can ask Aila about it, provide more context, request clarification, or escalate for human review.
This is a collaborative process.
Aila is trained to support a wide range of behavior issues. She will guide you as far as it’s safe to do so.
If she detects higher-level risk (such as severe aggression, significant safety risks, or complex medical factors), she will pause and involve an INSTINCT behavior consultant before moving forward.
Yes. Safety is built into every layer of the system.
Aila is trained to avoid harmful methods and to stay within well-established, evidence-based behavior practices.
Your plan is reviewed by INSTINCT behavior consultants, and Aila is designed to pause and escalate anytime she sees a potential safety issue.
Aila follows INSTINCT’s Nature-Driven Nurture™ principles — safe, kind, effective training rooted in modern behavioral science.
She does not recommend punishment-based, coercive, or fear-based methods.
Every personalized plan goes through human review.
Users can also request human review of a response anytime, at no cost.
For highly complex or safety-sensitive cases, Aila’s message functionality is paused and humans step in right away.
Aila can provide safe, effective support for many dogs with bite histories. However, depending on the severity and complexity of your dog’s history, Aila may pause and bring in a human expert before recommending anything.
Aila errs on the side of safety when it comes to involving her human colleagues, to ensure you receive safe, individualized guidance based on best practices for higher-risk behavior cases.
Aila uses multiple layers of safety to make sure the guidance you receive is appropriate, evidence-based, and aligned with INSTINCT’s standards.
At the AI level, Safety Monitoring checks all input and output across 20+ safety categories — things like health risks, harmful training suggestions, crisis situations, or anything outside of safe, positive behavior practices.
If something needs human attention, Aila pauses and brings in an INSTINCT behavior consultant.
Yes. If your trainer uses positive, evidence-based, welfare-focused methods, Aila will prioritize their recommendations when you upload their lesson notes or summaries.
INSTINCT trainers and behavior consultants can add missions and notes directly into your plan.
Absolutely. Aila can generate summaries you can bring to your veterinarian to support medical assessment and collaborative care.
Aila will never recommend unsafe or outdated practices.
If your current trainer uses methods outside of Aila’s safety or ethical boundaries, you can:
We encourage you to work with professionals whose recommendations align with safe, evidence-based care.
Yes. Your information is used to support you and your dog.
We do not sell your personal data or share it with outside companies.
No. Your personal data and your dog’s information are not used to train external AI systems.
Yes, but only so you and Aila can continue your work together. Your data stays private and secure.
You can opt in to allow Aila to share a summary of your message history with your INSTINCT trainer, to bring them up to speed on goals, progress, current missions, and concerns.
If your account access is ever paused due to a safety concern, you’ll be given the option to allow our human team to review the flag and determine whether access can be restored. If you choose not to opt in to human review at this stage, our team won’t be able to assess or address the potential safety concern, and the account will be closed.
Yes. You can complete the assessment, receive your Council Report and personalized plan, and begin working with Aila (10 messages), all without entering a credit card.
Yes, if you want to continue messaging with Aila. Many users choose to upgrade for unlimited Aila support or integrations with human coaching. But there are no contracts, hidden terms, or required commitments.
Most families notice meaningful improvements within the first week.
Real progress comes from clear steps, practiced consistently. Aila will help you stay on track.
Aila can’t “fix” a dog — but she can help change behavior.
Dogs aren’t broken. Behavior challenges usually come from some combination of environmental friction, unmet needs, stress, confusion, or past experiences.
Just like our human behavior consultants, Aila helps you understand what your dog needs and guides you through practical steps that lead to real, lasting progress.
Your dog isn’t trying to be difficult. They’re trying to tell you something.
Aila helps you decode their needs and lead them with confidence.
Instinct is a national team of experienced dog behavior professionals. Learn more about everything your locally owned Instinct location has to offer.
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