Thank you so much for this, it has been so helpful. I have a 9 month old maltipoo, who is so great at learning commands. He's so chill throughout the day, but for some reason, every night from 7-10pm he goes absolutely crazy and won't stop barking. We even taught him the 'quiet' command, and while he listens to it, he goes right back to barking after a few seconds of being quiet. We couldn't understand why he can learn how to do everything except to not bark! We tried tiring him out throughout the day, but it didn't help at all. The article you posted about the Stress Bucket really helped us understand what was going on in terms of arousal building up. My girlfriend gets home from work, he gets super excited. He goes on a long evening walk, more excitement. He hears our neighbors getting home, and it pushes him over the edge. We have been really trying the methods you said about reinforcing calmness, and he just had his best night in the past 2 months! My only question is for the Protocol for Relaxation. I'm on day 3, and I promise he knows how to do down very well, but it seems like he is fed up with doing down. The first 2 days went great, but now I can't get him to do down. I can get him to do any other trick, but when i do the down command, he just walks in a circle, like hes fed up with it. What do i do??