#tasking

[taskmasterfans]

And it’s finally that time of the year again! Get ready to mark it in your calendars as Taskmaster 21 hits Channel 4 Thursday 9th April. 

Extremely excited to have Greg and Alex back on my telly and looking forward to seeing how the comedians. I also can’t wait to see what episode I went to. 

Been having a bad week so this has really given me a boost. 

[the-fairy-dogmother]

I so love this dog. ♥️

Fact: she hates laying down on hard floor. In fact, she will not down on hard flooring for a treat. The only time she lays on the hard floor is when she's hiding under the bed because I pulled out the nail trimmers.

But I didn't pull out the nail trimmers. She found another reason.

After our equipment failure and major loss in the tank, I had to clean it out. It was not easy - I was an emotional mess. Misoru was right next to me the whole time, insisting I take breaks for cuddles and snugs before I kept going until it was done.

She still follows me into Dexter's room and if I start fussing in the tank she lays down on the floor until I'm done. I didn't train that, it's just who she is.

[grison-in-space]

Okay, so: I've mentioned that I have service oriented tasks in mind for Matilda, but I haven't actually talked a bunch about what I'm aiming for. In part this is because one of the biggest things I would find supportive doesn't seem to be a Thing at the moment.

Generally speaking, I need an executive function support dog. I think I can make this happen without overtaxing my dog, but I'm getting stuck thinking about what I want to teach and how to chain it, so I'm going to think out loud for a minute.

So: autism, ADHD, constant masking, and an objectively stressful ten years in Texas (fire! flood! school stabbing! literal abandonment! we have them all!) has left me with some burnout problems. I dissociate a lot and I need to figure out how to train that as an alert, but especially in the evenings I tend to get stuck. Most of my coping techniques relied on either stores of energy I largely just don't have or on anxiety over consequences to serve as a motivator. While I can still do my job pretty well (thanks, hyperfocus!), I miss a lot of care opportunities (things like: consume lunch. Drink liquids. Take afternoon meds). And I can tune out anything at this point.

I have found that there's a distinct sensory component to this, though: visual and especially tactile stimuli work way better than auditory ones. It's just that there isn't really anything that can do a mix like that right now. I've rigged some things to help but it's not ideal, and I've passively/accidentally trained every previous dog I've had to sit outside flailing distance and subvocalize until I get up anyway; surely it should be possible to teach a dog to help with this. Say, by progressing from a touch or lick to a nose punch to crawling into my lap to lick my face on a timed cue.

By the way, friends, you lose shit in burnout. Learn from my mistakes; try to mask less, fuck. I have a lot of grief I'm still processing over things I did ten or fifteen years ago that I can't do today; my capacity is just so much lower than it used to be. I am on an upswing--the move helped a lot, just getting away from Texas, and the new job environment has been helpful, and so have some med adjustments... but I'm not as fast or as hard driving as I used to be, and there are some things I won't get back.

Anyway. Plans. Public access groundwork is actually not worrying me too badly at this stage: we're working on dog reactivity, foundations, and settling, and she sees enough weird places I'm not too concerned about now. But it's the tasking pieces I'm hung up on. I have thoughts, at least, for the dissociation alerts and grounding part of the problem: I know how I hold myself and how I don't move in certain ways when I'm dissociated, and "touch" shaped into licking my hand or nudging me is something I can use for that.

But what would be really helpful is setting alerts for Tilly to go into Pester Mode on a timer. I think I can use a phone timer for this, probably, although I would really like it if I could make Gcal notifications work as a cue to set timers to. I can use "human stands up" as my stop cue for the behavior, and the start cue is of course the timer itself. Once summoned by the timer, I know what I would like her to do.

I'm just sort of stuck on how to go about starting this. I do not want to invoke Pester Mode without the timer, and I would ideally like Pester Mode to be reliably turned off if I stand up. I do not want to trigger Pester Mode for anyone but me. I can think of like half a dozen ways this task could go hideously wrong.

It's just that it would be so helpful if I could program a bunch of very specific reminders based on my Gcal schedule and then have a stubborn little dog break any hyperfocus and help me transition into a new behavior at those periods. Unfortunately, now that Matilda is old enough to begin thinking about beginning to shape the beginnings of this, I find myself stuck. What would you do, dogblr?

[redrageoused]

simultaneously building a jason todd playlist an andreil playlist and a spiderman playlist

[doomspaniels]

I drop something? Tristan is there to return it. I take my meds? Tristan is there in case I drop something. I rustle in my bedside table? Tristan is there in case something falls. Bright eyed and eager, Tristan is there to assist.

LET TRISTAN HELP YOU LET TRISTAN HELP YOU LET TRISTAN HELP YOU LET TRI

[abod1960]

Multitasking is a lie.

Gary Keller

[chronicrip]

me: gets attacked by a spider in minecraft

my service dog, alerting: 👁👅👁