Himself and I are not actually supposed to have Coburn. In fact, we live in an apartment that does not allow any pets at all. The decision to get Coburn was not one we made lightly - in fact, we have been planning and saving money for two years, but we wanted to have a house before we got our dog.
Many factors led us to made the decision to go ahead and get him even though we live in an apartment, but for obvious reasons, we have to be sneaky when it comes to walking him. This was extremely difficult at first, since Coburn was so terrified of the stairs he froze solid at the top.
Last weekend Coburn, my mom and I went to Redcliff to visit my favourite cousin, and I thought I would take the opportunity to teach Coburn how to use the stairs without the threat of being evicted. There are three sets of stairs in their house - a smaller, shallower set, a larger set and then the evil set from hell in the backyard. Even I'M afraid to go down those sometimes, especially if alcohol is involved.
Coburn and I started on the smallest stairs, which he ascended with only a little coaxing. No sweat! But descending the bigger set took stranding him at the top with his dinner at the bottom. Cruel? Nah. Hilarious, yes!
What shocked me though, was that mere hours after mastering the second set of stairs, Coburn very slowly climbed the evil stairs from hell. We were all on the deck and suddenly his little nose poked over the top step. We all jumped to our feet and cheered him on, and rushed to hug him when he made it up.
Now the stairs are no problem. In fact, sometimes he takes them so quickly he scares me! A few times he has fallen between the steps (and I've screamed!) but he just doesn't seem to notice his failures - or, more importantly, remember them. Each day he runs up and down those steps as though he never feared them at all. Why can't we humans do the same thing?
2 comments:
awesome aren't they? Hela was terrified of doors, especially our garage door. we used to coax her out by pretending to just leave her and go off on her walks and stuff. We'd also have to physically lift her into and out of the car. but after lots of fun trips in the car she's decided the car doors aren't so bad after all and she's gotten used to most other doors.
I've had to lift Coburn many times and he's SOOO heavy! He still doesn't have the car thing down, but you're giving me hope!
Post a Comment