MushMate already worked out what each dog spends — maintenance, cold, the work of its kilometres — to suggest its grams. It showed it nowhere. The new Analysis tab puts that spend next to what the recorded ration really gives it.
What changes
- On the website, "Analysis" in the menu; on the phone, Manage › Resources › Analysis. At the top, needs attention: at most five dogs, sorted — act, watch, unreliable balance, surplus. Each card leads to the dog's ration.
- Below, dog by dog: today's balance ("−500 kcal/day · −25 %"), the weight change over 14 days, the day the ration was last reviewed.
- The week: the energy the whole kennel spends, what it means in kilos of kibble per day (with a link to the stock), and the kilometres of the last seven days.
- On a dog's page (Life in the kennel), above the ration: where the number comes from (maintenance, cold, work, given), and the ration that would cover its spend.
- On an outing's page (website): what it cost each dog, and the equivalent in grams of its kibble — to know what to give on return.
Who sees it
The whole kennel: owner, handlers, guides, vet, viewers. Nothing leaves the kennel; the club sees nothing.
What it does not do
- It never changes a ration. It shows what would cover the spend; the musher decides, on the Ration card.
- It measures nothing. No heart rate, no calorimetry: these are model estimates, ± 15 %, and the screen says so next to every figure.
- It does not judge a ration that follows the spend. If you let MushMate compute the grams, the balance is zero by construction: the Analysis says "follows the spend" and invents no deficit.
- It does not count a pregnant or nursing female. Her need is not that of a dog in training; she has no balance.
- Team rotation and race-day form come next; they are not in this version.
What we decided, and why
- Nothing under 10 %. A 6 % deficit is inside the model's uncertainty: showing it in red would chase a rounding error. We watch from 10 %, act beyond 20 % — or from 10 % if the dog lost 3 % of its weight in two weeks: the scale then confirms what the estimate suspects.
- "Unreliable" rather than an alert. A ration not reviewed for a month, or a dog not weighed for three weeks: the balance does not say "deficit", it says "unreliable" and suggests weighing. A false alarm teaches people to stop looking.
- Cold, as a bound only. The cold term is off in the model pending veterinary validation: in winter the spend is therefore underestimated, and the screen says so at the top. Next to it, a second "with cold" bound shows what the balance would be if it were counted — labelled "not validated", and it never raises an alert.
- The thresholds are set by the MushMate team (the model's "ration" setting), not written in the code.