SELF-EXPERIMENTATION 1 hour. Kennel setting. Experiment to explore my human mentailty in a shelter environment.
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5 minutes: Loud barking continues to erupt following the excitement of me walking into the kennel block. Sitting at a dog’s eye level, the level of noise is piercing, at times making me wince.
10 minutes: Noise levels finally begin to reduce, currently in a slightly thoughtful mood. Looking around at the kennel pass time. 15 minutes: Beginning to feel slight discomfort so I re-adjust my position, still remaining at a dog’s eye level. Immediately noticed the sharp rush of cold from the flooring as I lean on my hands to re-adjust. 20 minutes: Beginning to feel quite cold within the environment. No sense of comfort within the pen which makes it seem worse. The silence of the kennels, apart from loud echoes of dog’s nails as they pace their kennels, becomes quite eerie. 25 minutes: No change. Still feeling cold and being to become agitated, slightly caged in. 30 minutes: Despite aiming to replicate ‘no socialisation’ during this experiment, the accompanying dog within the kennel gets up to greet me. For roughly 2 minutes, I give him fuss before he went onto the outside run. Those two minutes had a positive effect on my mood, making me momentarily forget my surroundings. 35 minutes: I am being to frequently swap what leg I am sitting on in order to give me something to do. Becoming very bored and somewhat tired. 40 minutes: Shouting from outside the kennel block causes an uproar in sudden barking. It makes me automatically wince again and begins to hurt my head. 45 minutes: Reached for my phone to check the time, and had to physically drag myself off it to ensure the validity of my results. 50 minutes: Starting to feel physically agitated with how little room I have to manoeuvre, and when I do the materiality of the kennel makes my body feel very cold. 55 minutes: Sitting still, back up against the wall. Eyes are beginning to close. Feeling extremely tired in comparison to the start of the experiment. 60 minutes: A surge of relief as my experiment is over, left physically uncomfortable and mentally drained. ____________________________________________________________________________________
POTENTIAL DISCREPANCIES TO INVESTGATION
Two occasions where my attention was diverted for a couple of minutes, one looking at my phone and one being greeted by the accompanying dog in the kennel with me. The intention was to replicate a dog kennel experience as accurately as possible, including sitting at their eye level, no socialisation or contact with another or no distractions. Nonetheless, I do not beileve that these two incidents effected the final results.
EVALUATIVE THOUGHTS Being subject to a kennel environment was a very clarifying experience. During the first few minutes, I felt relatively calm and took the opportunity to wonder away with my thoughts (once the initial barking had stopped). Nonetheless, as the experience progresses I became increasingly aware of the physical discomfort caused by the hard, cold materials. Likewise, I started to feel mentally distressed through intense boredom and agitation with feeling slightly claustrophobic. This is debatable as to whether this is because my body mass was too big for the space available, despite being smaller than a selection of large breeds at the facility. Despite my resultant negative experience, throughout the investigation I upheld the privilege of knowing I could remove myself from that situation and escape. Linking back to the inability of dogs to rationalise the situation, I can imagine it being an extremely mind-numbing, frustrating experience if I was unaware of how to get out. Potentially my ability to recognise the desensitisation of surrounding aesthetics and understanding of why I was feeling discomfort meant that I was more susceptible.