Read while they settle

The first week with the mask: condition, love, reward

No animal was born hoping to wear a mask, and the good news is none of them has to be convinced in a day. Trudell's own trainers teach a three-word method — condition, love, reward — and it compresses to this: the mask must become furniture before it becomes medicine.

Here is the week, day by day, as it actually goes.

Days one and two: the mask is furniture

Leave the chamber near the food bowl or the favourite chair. No treatment, no ceremony — it just lives there, smelling like the house. Touch it casually. Let curiosity do the introductions.

Days three and four: the mask brings snacks

Hold the mask a hand's width from the face, produce something delicious, retreat. Repeat in ten-second sessions. You are not medicating; you are building the world's simplest equation: mask equals good things.

Days five and six: seconds, then breaths

Rest the mask gently over nose and mouth for a second or two — no inhaler yet — then treat like it's a festival. Stretch a second into five, five into a slow count of ten. If ears go back, shrink the ask and end on a win.

Day seven: the first real dose

Click in the inhaler, puff into the chamber away from the face, then mask on and count the Flow-Vu swings. Keep your voice at Sunday-morning volume. Most patients are through it before the treat pocket is even open — and by next month, treatment time is bonding time, exactly as promised on the tin.