I'm a planner. I like order and predictability. Similar to George I guess, I like patterns 😆 I set up a couple of simple Google sheets on my phone for tracking sleep and reactions. It's quite important when you're trialling different meds as it can be really difficult to tell if there are any improvements when you’re so close.
I have been logging duration and intensity of reactions since we started the meds.
Here's the total reactions per week:
I have been logging duration and intensity of reactions since we started the meds.
As you can see, it's up and down! But has never hit the high of 116 per week of week 1. Week 15 was a bit of a blip but it's still quite an improvement from week 1. The stats above don’t include when we started our third med (in week 21) so I hope to share even more positive news in future.
A major improvement for us has been the huge reduction in duration - reducing from an average of 38 seconds per reaction (that's a lot) to 4.1 seconds in recent weeks.
I've also been tracking sleep. Such an important thing for reactive dogs and something George is not great at. He rests much better with the meds but is still averaging around 13 hours a day. I read that anxious dogs should be aiming for about 17 hours…
Having looked at the results you might wonder why meds have been such a game-changer for George. The stats obviously show something of a decrease but don't really display how much calmer he is, how he rests better and more deeply, how much happier he seems and how much less stressed.
As much as stats can help, they are only part of the story. As the caregiver, you know your dog best and what is working or not.
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