This is a Kong household. I have one dog and roughly 14 Kong’s (of various shapes and sizes). Luckily, the one treat Melvin can have fits perfectly inside the Kong. He has to work to get it out but not so long that he gives up.
Melvin knows that at the end of the day, if he gathers up all his Kong’s and brings them to the kitchen sink, he’ll get a treat. Yes, he’s brilliant. Trouble in the new house has been that the steps going upstairs are hardwood, there is was no runner. Actually, that is not the actual issue. The reason we needed a runner for six-months and twenty-days is that Melvin, when faced with the opportunity of getting a treat, goes into yippee mode. It doesn’t matter if the treat is a bully stick or if the treat is one pea, his enthusiasm for food knows no discrimination. He would take the bare steps up two-at-a-time, bouncing backwards off of four of them, hitting the halfway-up landing and promptly slamming into the wall. Up six more steps, fall down two. The way up the steps was not even the dangerous part. On the way down, Kong in mouth, I couldn’t really tell you how many steps Melvin intended to take, only that he never really made full contact with any of them. The only constant was him crashing into the landing wall before rebounding for the last six obstacles between him and the treat.
So last week, I saved on future vet bills by having a runner installed.
And here is where I found Melvin last night. I think he just realized that there is a landing.
