Things Shadow has trained us to do:
- call him to come in: he'll wait at the back part of the yard, head down, intently staring at us until we call him; then he comes flying in - the payoff to him? his favorite treat, only reserved for him responding to "come".
- roll the back windows down in the car so he can stick his head out even when it's freezing (but we haven't caved on the freeway yet).
- 6 am daily pee break: one of us has to get up at 6 am and let him out to pee. At first this applied to breakfast, too, now he's willing to wait until we get up for breakfast, but nothing can prevent his need to go outside at his set time. At first he whined, when we resisted, he tried shaking/flopping around in his crate. We resisted. Now he will escalate to a combination of both until we let him out. We get more sleep after a ten minute jaunt outside, so we caved.
- keeping the shades closed; opening the top half of windows. I'm a sun-lover, and nothing makes me happier than open windows and open shades. Nothing has a more calming affect on Shadow than closed shades and closed windows. He won. No sight of neighborhood cats to grouse at, no noticeable neighborhood dogs to crave play with, no glimpse of squirrels to chase = napping or playing happily with toys.
- frequent stops on walks so he can look around and take things in or meet other dogs: not in a casual, "oh, hello there" as we move on kind of way; but with every ounce of intention and focused energy he can muster toward each thing that catches his attention.
- daily stuffed kongs (sometimes two!)
Considering all the things he's been happy to learn for our benefit, this list could be more demanding.
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