First Days of JournoDog Training

Exploring a new beat during your initial days on a new journalism job can always be a bit overwhelming, exhilarating and exhausting.

That is what I’ve seen in my first days as JournoDog. At times it feels as if this new leash is limiting my ability to sniff out stories and unbury ledes in my own backyard. But I realize it’s meant to teach me style guide, how to interact with sources, and how to pursue a story without chasing down false leads.

Here are some snippets of my initial learnings on this beat.

• Not yet sure of the Canine AP style guide for commands, but I’m trying to learn.
• The 1st breaking news story came just days after arriving in this fur-ever home, with First Dog Champ Biden crossing the rainbow bridge. I covered it, like a good JournoDog.
• My new editors are known as Mom & Dad. Feels like my editors have a heavy-handed, red pen markup style of editing me right now. Hopefully, I can find my voice and we’ll both learn our styles soon enough.
• When they think I’m not paying attention, they talk about another dog and how we’re polar opposites. Sounds like this first JournoDog was quite the canine character. I would’ve liked to meet her.
• Didn’t find anything newsworthy about treats Mom & Dad tried to bribe me with. Cheese, not particularly worth a story there… Then, I discovered the breaking news headline story that is “CHMKN.” OMG, now that is a story worth sniffing and gobbling up. You can quote me on that!
• Met a pretty neighbor girl in my first hours, but fumbled that meetup. There were wagging tails and nose sniffs through the silver chainlink fence, and I made assumptions despite knowing that’s not the Journo way. Since I’m basically college age in human years, instinct told me to lift my leg at her… More than once, in hopes she’d like me. She wasn’t impressed.
• Developing my Nose for the News…
  • smelled a story, had to escape the metal cage they call “crate” that they left me alone in the first morning after I got here (WTF, people??)
  • chased a story outside and tried to find the scoop, in my first day on the JournoDog job. I darted out a slightly ajar door and then bolted underneath the closing garage door, making my way to the front lawn spit where I sensed many dogs have peed. My Editor Dad knew I was chasing a lead, so he turned and led me back inside with a new worthy tip. His quick thinking saved me from barking up the wrong tree, and instead helped me get back to where my import news story was still being written.

• Loving my chew toys, especially my newspaper chew toys that crinkle when I chew on them. So far, in just the first week, I’ve destroyed 2 different toys. That’s fun for me. I also like to rest my head on the crinkly newspaper toy sometimes.
• Observed a blanket in that metal crate where my food has been every day and night. It reminds me of the coffee smells in the house during the day, when Dad is home alone with me editing my early news drafts.
• Might become a Dog Instagam Influencer, using my iBone toy to share stories on social media. Not sure I’m gonna do videos like Tucker Budzyn, but I do feelz like I could get a bunch of tail wags and puppy kisses online. And probably many would like to boop my nose, too!
• Haven’t yet my Grandma Editor quite yet, but she passed along Katie the Caterpillar chew toy as a house-warming gift, to help ease my anxiety. It’s made by @fluffandtuffdogtoys and by sharing on social media that #igiveafluff, they planned to donate a new chew toy to an animal rescue shelter. Very cool story I got to be a part of there!

As of now, that’s what I have been observing on my beat.

After I was on this beat for about a week, they also took me in to a clinic and left me there for most of the day. It was an important surgery “down there,” and afterward they put a fluffy pillow donut around my neck. They sayz it was for my own good, but I don’t believe them. Really, I think it was just an excuse to call me “Donut Dog.” Well, at least it wasn’t a plastic cone like I know some of my furry friends have had… that wouldn’t been worse.

Like I mentioned, this is all just the start of my story as JournoDog. The story of us.

We’re all trying to find our best voices to report fairly and accurately. Right now, finding that truth is a work in progress. We’re all sniffing out the different angles and many unknowns of our past stories in order to know where the rest of this story is going.

Bottom line: I am excited to be here, starting out on my beat as a JournoDog in training. It can be a bit tricky knowing where to sniff and what ledes might be buried. But I’m finding my style, and it’ll be an adventure modifying our words and grammar to tell this story the right way.

And btw: I’m already working on a big developing story about my own origins, including important fact checking about my exact age due to discrepancies in rescue shelter paperwork and Vaccine records. Stay tuned for more on that!

Until next week, or whenever the news beckons like a barking dog you can’t help but pay attention to, #JournoDog out.

As always, remember: Love your dog. Read a newspaper. Support local journalism. And try to smile and find a little happiness for your heart every day.

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