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LAP-OF-LOVE-DAILY

Lap of Love daily check-in

One-tap daily diary. Owners record good day / bad day / unsure with an optional note; surfaces as a calendar view in the hospice dashboard.

Overview

Developer
Dani McVety, Mary Gardner — Lap of Love Veterinary Hospice
Year published
2017
Species
Canine and feline
Domain
End-of-life daily diary

Structure and administration

One question per day with three responses (good day / bad day / unsure) and an optional free-text note up to 500 characters.

Owner-completed, under 30 seconds per day.

Cut-off and interpretation

Cut-off threshold
0

Source: No published clinical cut-off. The trajectory synthesis (S5-T6) consumes a rolling 7-day percentage of good days, weighted at 0.3 alongside HHHHHMM and JOURNEYS.

Citation and validation

McVety D, Gardner M. Daily good day / bad day diary methodology. Lap of Love Veterinary Hospice.

Revisions

  • v1.0 (Lap of Love) — original good day / bad day diary methodology promoted by Lap of Love and widely adopted in veterinary hospice care.

Target population

Any pet in hospice mode. Daily cadence keeps the trajectory line responsive to short-term shifts the weekly HHHHHMM and fortnightly JOURNEYS instruments can miss.

Available languages

English (UK)

Licence

Free for clinical use with citation.

Scoring algorithm version

sightline-lap-of-love-daily-v1.0.0

Strengths

  • Sub-30-second completion makes daily tracking realistic for owners under emotional load.
  • The optional note is often the most useful clinical signal — owners describe specific moments that summarise the day.
  • Calendar view at a glance makes trajectory direction obvious without numerical literacy.
  • Free for clinical use with citation.

Limitations

  • Subjective by design; owners may calibrate 'good' and 'bad' differently across pets and across weeks.
  • Single-question format means a pet can have a 'mostly good day with one bad hour' that the diary cannot capture; pairing with HHHHHMM weekly fills this gap.
  • Phase 1 ships English (UK).

Why Sightline uses it

The daily check-in is the warmest, lowest-friction signal in the hospice triplet. Owners tap once, optionally jot a sentence, and the trajectory line picks up the rhythm of their week without forcing a longer questionnaire on hard days. Pairing this with HHHHHMM (weekly comprehensive) and JOURNEYS (fortnightly decline-signal) gives the dashboard three time horizons at once.