Roger bought a new vacuum cleaner recently. He said it was to make my life easier but since it's a large commercial version, I refuse to use it. ... So the damn thing sits there, unloved and unused. Yesterday when I was at the Market however, he did run it over the kitchen/dining/living rooms and it certainly sucked up the accumulated dogs' hair very well. If I could encourage him to use it weekly.......
You need to read some basic psychology texts on the subject of conditioned training. With animals, who don't understand you if you nag ("Sit up and beg, Bazalgette¹" to a cat, e.g.), patiently wait until the animal accidentally approximates the behavior you want, then give it an immediate reward. Once the desired behavior is becoming routine and Bazalgette sits up and begs (or Lesley's Roger vacuums the house), then switch to sporadic reinforcement, where a reward is given proper behavior only once in a while. Sporadic reinforcement is the strongest reinforcement you can give, better than always being rewarded.
Just keep at your nearest and dearest, Lesley, and you'll soon have him vacuuming night and day, and that cloud of dog hair will be a thing of the past. As food is the path to a man's heart, I suggest delectable goodies that Roger-without-a-D is always nagging you to make but seldom gets. [Is it possible that he's training you to make goodies with the reward being a clean house?]
¹Bazalgette: what a friend calls the fatter of the two new cats that I adopted last week. He calls the skinny one Brunel.
