Today Royce gave me his first "Mom, I need out!" signal. He came to me, stared at me and DH, gave a teeny bark and growl (he is a chatterbox, it's not an aggresive growl. More like a trill, lol) and I said "Do you need out? Let's go out!" So we did, and he went, then ran right upstairs to the apartment :)
Success! A milestone! I'm not a told-you-so person, but in the FACE of the people who said my dog wasn't learning. He is!