Wilbur the dog: Methods of Persuasion that don't involve food

   Sometimes I contemplate all the things I could threaten Wilbur the dog with for his transgressions.
   The transgressions:
    -"Killing" his stuffed animals (and sometimes Clara's stuffed animals), burying them in the backyard, then digging them up and "killing" them again, so there's cotton stuffing and muddy, matted shanks of fur all over the backyard.
    -Eating Clara's dirty diapers (if I should forget and leave one wrapped on the floor for a mere five seconds to run downstairs for her diaper rash cream), and then strewing the diaper remnants all over the back patio.
     -Coughing and retching like a miner with black lung in the early morning hours, then snorting and rolling luxuriantly on his back on the carpet just beneath my side of the bed, his collar jingling like a sleigh at Christmastime.
   
     The worst transgression of all is Wilbur's passive resistance.  My neighbors are all well-aquainted with the sight of me chasing Wilbur down the street (sometimes in my jammies), and then carrying him back to our house.
     Yes, Wilbur has learned the subtle advantages of the inert rebellion. When I catch up to him on the street, rather than darting out of the way of my reaching hands, he simply lies down and rolls onto his back.  No amount of coaxing can raise him to his fleshy paws.  When we first got him, and he weighed more than fifty pounds, this was an incredibly daunting task.  I had to squat down, slide my hands underneath him and then mutter this mantra to myself: "Lift with your legs, Isabelle.  Lift with your legs."
     It was like trying to haul a fleshy log.
     Now Wilbur is much more svelte, but he has the unique ability to make himself seem like he weighs 200 pounds.
     He has taken to dozing behind Clara's rocking chair while we read her bedtime stories.  When it's time to say good-night, he looks at us lovingly, as if to say, "You poor, poor people.  Don't you know I'm not ready to leave yet?"
     Because he's wedged behind the rocking chair, picking him up and bringing him into the hallway is not that feasible.
      And this is where the threats come in.  So far I've come up with three that seem satisfying to me:
   
       1.) "Wilbur, if you don't get out right now, I will take all your rawhide bones and replace them with dental hygiene bones." ("But Wilbur likes dental hygiene bones," Simon says.
      "He likes anything that goes into his mouth," I reply.  "But he likes rawhide bones better than dental hygiene bones.")

      2.)  "Wilbur, git! Or else I'll shave off all your fur and you'll look like a chubby pink rat."

      3.)   "Out, Wilbur!  Or else I'll swaddle you tight like a papoose and give you to Clara to play with.  You don't care?  Really?  Because I know she has some pink bloomers that would look fantastic on your head.  She could put your ears through the leg holes."

     Simon's threats are much more to the point and involve cursing in a low voice so Clara can't hear.
     Of course, most of the time, Wilbur just yawns and stretches while we're threatening him.  So we've developed two tried-and-true methods of getting him across Clara's bedroom floor and out the door.
     The first is the "log roll," and it's executed exactly the way you might think.  Wilbur doesn't mind this at all.  In fact, he facilitates by curling his paws under him.  The hardest part is the initiation push.  Once we get him rolling, though, inertia takes over and each roll seems a little easier than the last.  When we get to the door, he jumps up, shakes, and trots out into the hallway.
     The second method is "the drag."  Simon reaches down, grabs his collar, and drags him horizontally across the carpet to the door.  This appears to be Wilbur's favorite method.  Done correctly, there is no choking involved (though Simon sometimes wishes there were), and Wilbur gets a back-scratch from the carpet.  Again, he facilitates by curling his paws and tail in.
     He looks like a rotund otter as he slides across the floor.