[NAGDU] Trip journal

[Julie J.]

I did this when I was having issues with Jetta.  Looking back, I notice that 
her behavior gets better, but my ratings don't.  I think my expectations 
changed throughout the process.  In the beginning it was just if we could go 
somewhere without her losing her grip on sanity over another dog.   Then as 
that improved, I'd make more notes about her sniffing or whatever.  She was 
probably doing the same amount of sniffing earlier, it just wasn't a 
priority then.  So I stopped looking at my rating as a reflection of her 
actual performance, but more about my feelings about working with her.  My 
notes did help me to see patterns in her behavior and to be able to help her 
work through those issues.  and the ratings helped me to realize that a part 
of the equation was my feelings toward her work.

The whole process did help a lot.  Sometimes it would be the act of writing 
it out that helped me to logically see there was improvement.  When I'd be 
out with her and she'd go off over some barking dog, I would be so 
frustrated and I'm sure that contributed to her and her behavior two blocks 
down at the next barking dog.  Keeping track in a more scientific way helped 
me to see that last week she reacted X amount of times and this week on the 
same route we only had Y number of issues.  I'm generally a logic based 
thinker and this helped me a lot.

Julie
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-----Original Message----- 
From: Tracy Carcione via NAGDU
Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2016 7:37 AM
To: 'NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users'
Cc: Tracy Carcione
Subject: [NAGDU] Trip journal

I was grumbling to a friend about my problems with Krokus, and she suggested
I keep a trip journal.  I write down the trip, some of the highlights and
lowlights, and give it a rating.

It seems kinda useful, so I mention it to the list.  I can look back at the
last few days and see any patterns, and record what's working and what's
not.

I'm not sure about the rating, though.  Krokus tends to be a slow starter.
He screws around when we're starting out, then he gets in a groove and is
good.  So the first part of a trip could be a 2 or 3, then the rest could be
a 7.

Then I ask myself, what's my scale?  Really, my expectation is that a guide
dog would attend to guiding most of the time, only sniffing or getting
distracted a little bit.  So is that a 5, average, or a 9, with 10 being for
outstanding behavior, like a traffic check?  When Krokus actually goes a
whole trip without balking or sniffing, I'm so amazed I give him a high
rating, but I think I'm inflating his grades a bit.

Anyway, there it is, for whatever it's worth.

Tracy



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