Project status
I've been doing a lot of setup work for my study this past week. Earlier, I had been mostly reading about cortisol and spit and dog stress studies. Now I'm on campus more, doing things like making sure our A/V setup works to film dogs. There was a lot of carting of equipment back and forth between where it had been stored previously and its storage spot in my mentor's office in the hospital. I think I went back and forth four times one day, each time realizing I needed one more piece of equipment.
To test stuff out, I brought my dog Jack in to the hospital, stuck him in the cage we'll be using, and set the camera running, then left him for thirty minutes. He thought this was pretty appalling, so I got decent footage of a stressed dog (which of course then stressed me out in turn to watch). I'm learning things like "the dog may be whining but you can't tell if it's the dog in question or someone else" and "the power cord is likely to fall in front of the camera." But no one moved the camera, so that was good. (It's pretty much impossible to find an out of the way spot in the hospital.)
I've also written up a rough draft of my script to use when calling owners to ask if I can enter their dogs in my study. Cold calling people is the scariest thing ever! I am trying not to think about it. I'm also trying to write up an FAQ to answer any questions they have so I am not too much on the spot. The question I'm most dreading is "but I really want to talk to my dog's doctor! Why haven't they called yet to answer X question? Will you talk to them and get them to call me?" No, I have no pull with clinicians, unfortunately.
Most interesting thing I learned recently from the little bit of reading I am still doing: you can also look at alpha-amylase levels in human saliva for a different look at stress levels (alpha-amylase for the sympathetic-adrenal-medullary axis, cortisol for the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis). But you can't do it with dogs, because they don't have alpha-amylase in their saliva at all. Bummer.
To test stuff out, I brought my dog Jack in to the hospital, stuck him in the cage we'll be using, and set the camera running, then left him for thirty minutes. He thought this was pretty appalling, so I got decent footage of a stressed dog (which of course then stressed me out in turn to watch). I'm learning things like "the dog may be whining but you can't tell if it's the dog in question or someone else" and "the power cord is likely to fall in front of the camera." But no one moved the camera, so that was good. (It's pretty much impossible to find an out of the way spot in the hospital.)
I've also written up a rough draft of my script to use when calling owners to ask if I can enter their dogs in my study. Cold calling people is the scariest thing ever! I am trying not to think about it. I'm also trying to write up an FAQ to answer any questions they have so I am not too much on the spot. The question I'm most dreading is "but I really want to talk to my dog's doctor! Why haven't they called yet to answer X question? Will you talk to them and get them to call me?" No, I have no pull with clinicians, unfortunately.
Most interesting thing I learned recently from the little bit of reading I am still doing: you can also look at alpha-amylase levels in human saliva for a different look at stress levels (alpha-amylase for the sympathetic-adrenal-medullary axis, cortisol for the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis). But you can't do it with dogs, because they don't have alpha-amylase in their saliva at all. Bummer.