One of our neighbors faced a similar situation. He solved it by running over his beat-up old trash can with his pickup truck until it was a flattened sheet of plastic. (It looked like he was having fun while doing it.)
I have a much greater tolerance for a bit of dirt on my car than husband does on his, so he’s the one who says to me “Your car needs a wash”. I generally shrug my shoulders and say I’ll get around to it eventually — which I absolutely would, if he ever gave me the chance. Instead I’ll notice he’s not in the house and go track him down — out in the driveway, washing my car. He’s happy to do it and I’m happy to have him do it, so I count that as a win-win.
And I just learned an interesting fact about the software used for this comment section. I tried to type win-slash-win there above, only to be warned that “URLs are not allowed in comments”. Um, what? But it wouldn’t let me post with the single slash there.
I could give dozens of examples of dogs thinking. The first one that comes to mind is when my dog goes to find his leash, carries it to me, and drops it at my feet. I wasn’t providing her with any stimuli at the moment, and neither was the leash, I’m quite sure.
That’s it! Thank you!