What a behaviourist reads first
A behaviourist's first question is rarely what your cat did. It is what happened immediately before, what exactly the cat did with its whole body, and how the episode ended. One dramatic incident, a lunge at a visiting dog, say, tells them little on its own. The same reaction recorded twelve times, always when a stranger reaches overhead, always preceded by the cat freezing and going silent, always followed by an hour of hiding, is a working map of the problem and the beginnings of a plan.
So the goal of your notes is not a diary of bad days. It is a consistent record that lets a professional spot the trigger pattern, judge how aroused your cat becomes, and measure whether things are improving. Write entries for ordinary reactions as well as dramatic ones; a cat that merely leaves the room when the doorbell rings is data too, and a log that only contains crises exaggerates severity.
A note format that captures the useful detail
Give every entry the same skeleton so nothing depends on memory later. Note when it happened, where in the home, and who or what was present. Then record the trigger as precisely as you can: not the neighbours, but the neighbours' dog barking at the fence for roughly a minute. Describe the reaction in body terms rather than interpretations: ears flattened, pupils wide, body low, tail lashing, then bolted under the bed. Avoid labels like angry or naughty, which describe your guess, not the cat.
Add two numbers to every entry: an intensity rating out of five, using your own consistent scale, and the recovery time, how long before your cat was eating, playing or resting normally again. Recovery time is one of the most useful measures a behaviourist has, because it often improves before the reaction itself does. Finally, note what you did in response and whether it helped, since your current strategies are part of the picture being assessed.
Patterns worth flagging as you go
As entries accumulate, skim weekly for repeats. Reactions to new people often separate into distinct problems: the cat that fears all visitors needs different help from the cat that only fears reaching hands, hats or loud voices. Noise reactions repay the same care; a cat that recovers in minutes from the vacuum but hides all evening after fireworks is showing you two different sensitivities, and a behaviourist will treat them differently.
Note household context too: a new pet's arrival, building work, a changed work schedule, even a moved litter tray. Behaviour that looks random across a month often lines up neatly against a change you stopped noticing after a week. Keep filming short clips when it is safe to do so, especially of the early warning signals, staring, stillness, tail flicks, that precede the behaviour you want help with; those signals are where most behaviour plans do their work.
Making the log easy to hand over
Keep the log in one place, in the same format, and bring several weeks of it to the consultation rather than a summary you wrote the night before. If several people live with the cat, agree the format together so entries stay comparable whoever writes them, and add initials so the behaviourist can ask the right person about an entry. When a reaction happens and the wording feels slippery, follow-up questions about a stubborn description, a recovery time or a trigger you recorded can go to KinsLe's Kinny at any point; he replies using material sourced from the library behind KinsLe Answers, which helps you sharpen the description before it goes to the behaviourist.