Claude spent a month living with us. During that time we only had a couple of toilet accidents. He got used to being taken out last thing at night and knew straight away that it was time for him to do his business. Then he would go willingly to his soft bed in the kitchen where I had left him a couple of "Markies" treats to eat so he would come to view going to bed at night as a positive pleasurable thing.
In the morning he would be ready to go straight out for his walk and toilet before coming back home for breakfast and some sofa time. He also liked being in the garden and he particularly liked travelling in the car. Thankfully he never got sick and he loved sniffing the scents carried on the breeze when we cracked open the car window. This made it easy to take him with us when we had some errands to run as he would quite happily sit in the car waiting for us while we popped into a shop.
After he had been with us for a while he started to wag his tail a little and hold it a bit higher when walking about instead of having it clamped between his hind legs all the time. I found this hugely emotional and rewarding as it indicated our boy was starting to feel more confident and was actually starting to enjoy life a bit more. Slowly but surely we were moving in the right direction.
All too soon our month away came to an end and we had to take Claude back to the kennels where he is staying until he can fly over to us. We are hoping he will be able to come over in April when he will fly in the cargo hold as live cargo with Turkish Airlines, just as Genghis did 9 years ago.