In-House Barrier Broken

Life may never be the same.  A major change has occurred here at the Lovestead, inside the Lovestead house.  

Actually, the interior of our house looks pretty much the same to us humans but not to Little, fast-growing Liam, our Border Collie pup,  has found a whole new perspective in his not-yet-three-months' worth of life.  

Liam has fully learned how to climb the stairs and to enter the upstairs once peaceful inter sanctum where I do all of my computer work. 

And, that is why life may never be the same for me or for Liam. It will be exciting for the young pup, always ready to take on life's newest adventure.

Life may have also improved a bit for Bill.  

For the first time since Thanksgiving weekend, he may be able to concentrate on what's happening inside his Kindle each morning rather than losing his train of thought several times while "mentoring" Liam. 

Before Liam:   During the first hour of the morning while he drinks his coffee with his Kindle downstairs and I drink my coffee with my desktop computer, the only sounds either of us hear at this hour are the Irish music I play upstairs or fly fishermen talking about flies at some forum and fishing on some stream inside his Kindle downstairs.

Otherwise, it's always been pretty quiet and peaceful as we rev up our overnight brains with caffeine and Internet stimulation. 

After Liam:  Upstairs, my Irish music still plays on while I happily sip on Folgers and flip through my regular morning bookmarks.  

Meanwhile, downstairs, what conversation is heard has since November has included the usual fly fishing stuff but also a lot more, "No, Liam . . . No, Liam . . . Liam, NO . . . Liam stay out of that . . . Liam, come . . . No, Liam, don't do that, sometimes followed by 'Liam has been eating the newspapers or Liam just went pee pee."

The morning Bill yelled up my way that Liam was throwing up, I tried, in vain, to ignore what I was hearing, but Bill insisted on announcing the stages of his vomiting process.  

To which I finally stomped down the stairs, asking what I was supposed to do about his throwing up, to which Bill told me that he just wanted me to know about it and then proceeded to clean up the vomit before Liam ate it.  

Dogs have the weirdest appetites.  That's all I've got to say.

Anyway, I have a feeling that several times this past month Bill has been downstairs inside his Kindle, standing midstream on the Lochsa or the Clearwater River about to hook on to a nice trout, when suddenly Liam decides to hook on to one of the several downstairs No Trespassing zones----like the Amish rocker or the newspaper pile or the inside floor mat----with those pinprick sharp teeth. 

Instead of catching his giant cutthroat, Bill jumps into motion to catch Liam before he eats any more no-no's. 

Let's just say life downstairs during the initial caffeine hour here at the house has hardly rivaled the bliss I've enjoyed upstairs.

Well, that has all changed. 

After several sessions of putting those cute big front paws on the bottom stair step, only to run away in frustration, Liam finally figured it out.  

He figured out that using the back feet along with the front paws does help while trying to ascend.

As an aside, he's had no problem figuring that out while peeing at a 45-degree angle in the snowbanks outside.   

I don't know why I was encouraging him these past few weeks to learn to climb the stairs.

I guess it's the school teacher in me----that element that loves to see learning happen.  All the time, I also knew that once Liam scaled the stairs, my peaceful getaway in the computer room would no longer be just that.  

Unfortunately, upstairs has also served as Foster's peaceful getaway.  When he's had enough of Liam, he comes up and sleeps on the bed next to the computer. 

Well, Liam went up and down the stairs on his very own for the first time Sunday night, and that achievement was pretty exciting to all of us, even Foster.   The little pup received lots of accolades for his moment of success. 

I purposely, however, did not remind him of that great achievement yesterday and got away with another morning of enjoyment while listening to Bill's disciplinary moves downstairs. 

Well, last night while we were transfixed to the Kansas-Oklahoma basketball game (what a game!), we both suddenly became aware of Liam's absence and looked all around the house with no luck.  

Then, a foreboding sound upstairs.  Pitter patter, pitter patter of heavy puppy feet.  

"Oh-oh," I said.  "He went upstairs all by himself, with no audience."

Indeed, the second my observation left my lips, we watched as Liam carefully descended the steps, keeping to the right, near the protective wall. 

And, life for the rest of us surely changed at that instant.

Liam had gone alone where Liam had never gone alone before, and he liked what he saw.

After the praise session, I immediately raced upstairs and closed doors. 

This morning my upstairs bliss was interrupted, as predicted.  

Suddenly, as I began my surfing and sipping, I spotted Liam walking through the door with both his sniffer and eyes in action.  

I'm guessing this morning's visit served simply an exploratory mission to check out the possibilities for those teeth in need of a new frontier for chewing because he did not stay long.

Downstairs, Bill was probably grinning and chuckling within, knowing that he will get a break from now on and that maybe, once again, he can hook onto those early morning cutthroat inside his Kindle with a little more regularity. 

Upstairs, I knew that my safe haven has become past tense.  Liam has learned stairs.  

I did enjoy one consolation.  Liam has yet to figure out how to jump up on the couch, a trick Annie tried, in vain, over Christmas to teach him with a handful of Pavlov's wheat thins. 

Well, at least we're safe on the couch, I thought.  

Or so I thought.  

When I came in from chores, Bill announced that Liam had actually gotten on the couch with no help from humans. 

"I don't think he knows how he did it," Bill told me.  "He just did it." 

"Okay," I said.  "Maybe he'll forget."  Ha!

The good side of all this evolution in puppy know how is that Liam starts school tonight, and maybe we'll learn a few tricks for dealing with upcoming firsts for the little guy. 

That's the hope anyway.  

In the meantime, I might start shutting the door to the computer room while I'm inside along with when I'm outside of the room.

That should help both me and Liam. 

Happy Tuesday.