Observation guide · Assessment and uncertainty
Keep the prediction open.
When a trainer says what a dog might do next, you’re hearing a prediction. The next exchange may support it, qualify it or send the session in another direction. Keep that movement in your record. It can explain the training decision more clearly than a list of commands.
A prediction tells you what the trainer expects.
In Kodak’s earlier public outing, the trainer anticipates that trying to play at that moment could be too much for him. The statement concerns Kodak with this person, at this point in the outing. It isn’t footage of an attempted game, and it doesn’t establish that Kodak can never enjoy play.
Follow the Kodak viewing pathway to hear the earlier prediction and the later discussion about offering games. Watch for language that marks a possibility or a current limitation. Removing that language can make an explanation sound more certain than it was.
An observation describes what the exchange supplies.
Keep your notes close to the recording: the handler offers an object, the dog approaches, the game continues, or a response is outside the selected view. Attribute the trainer’s interpretation separately. You may see an approach without being able to establish every reason for it.
For example, the published Kodak analysis describes a later game changing the trainer’s plan. That finding gives you a passage to study. It doesn’t give you an exact measure of Kodak’s feelings, a universal timetable or an instruction to try the same game with a different dog. The original source remains the place to follow the exchange.
A proposed plan still belongs in the future.
In Rocko and Kodak’s household conversation, the family distinguishes current schedules from room arrangements that aren’t ready yet. They seek the trainer’s recommendations for shared, individual and quiet time. Record those ideas as proposals.
A conversation can tell you what someone intends without showing the routine being carried out. “The family proposes individual time” and “the dogs spent a completed day apart” are different claims. The first is supported here; this passage doesn’t establish the second.
A later check needs its own source and conditions.
Look for the next relevant recording, an attributed family account or the trainer’s later explanation. Retain its date, person, task and setting. If a later scene differs from the earlier one, those differences belong in the comparison too.
You can say that an account changed or that a new response was recorded. To explain why it changed, you need more than two selected moments. A different handler, a new place, elapsed time or an altered request may each matter. The comparison guide helps you keep those conditions visible.
Write four separate lines.
- Prediction: What does the speaker expect, and which words qualify it?
- Observation: What can you see or hear in the relevant exchange? Mark a gap in the view.
- Proposal: What does someone intend to try, and what remains conditional?
- Check: Which later source would answer the open question? If you haven’t found one, leave it open.
Use the observation notebook for the source and timestamp. Use the two-moment workbench only when you have a second actual exchange. Neither tool turns an unanswered question into a result.
Bring the question back to your trainer: “What would you want to see before changing this part of the plan?” That asks for a criterion you can understand without prescribing a new exercise yourself. Browse the Academy library for related lesson records and observation guides.