I Want to Chat, Too

Ever since she was a tiny puppy, Emme decided that she could not go down the stairs without stopping to "chat." When we go down stairs, she sits on the top of the stairs and I sit two steps down and I put my face close to hers. She smells my breath and my skin and my eyes while I tell her what a good, clever, wonderful puppy she is.

That went on for months and then Emme made a variation on the game. When Ken takes her down the stairs first thing in the morning, Emme has to chat with him. But she doesn't chat only once. She stops at the top of the stairs, part way down and on the landing. Ken has to chat with her in all those places or she can't go down stairs. All this with a full bladder from last night.

Now Rudy has watched us chat with Emme and he has decided that he has to chat too. He only does this in the evening when we go upstairs to play "closet ball" when we change into our pajamas. Before he can go back down the stairs, he has to stop outside our bedroom door and stick his nose through the spindle wall so we can walk down to the landing and put our faces next to his. We chat and tell him what a good dog he is. Monkey see; monkey do. If it works for Emme, it should work for Rudy, too.