Transferable Skills

     Dasa’s illness causes her to have frequent accidents. We keep busy laundering rugs, changing piddle pads and scrubbing floors, and have pretty good damage control in most parts of the house. However, we’ve been using baby gates to close off the piano and living rooms during the day because they are carpeted, and the maintenance was becoming more than we could keep up with. In the evening we take the gates down and everyone snuggles together on the couch.     

     Ivan is fine with the gate arrangement during the day when no one is in those rooms. That is, until Eric began propping up a baby gate in front of the piano room so he could play before dinner without worrying about clean ups. (For some reason, perhaps a commentary on his playing, Dasa thinks the piano room is the ideal place to potty.)

      While Eric is playing the piano, the baby gate is merely leaning against the doorway instead of fastened firmly in place. My resourceful boy quickly discovered he could easily push the gate over and join Eric. Eric thinks this is very clever and routinely props up the gate so Ivan can push it over. Can anyone see where this is going? 

     For years, I’ve had a baby gate in the doorway to my work room where I keep to-be-sorted seasonal clothes, the upstairs recycling container, manila envelopes, wrapping paper, etc.  And for years, the Munchkins have shown no interest in this room. Granted, I don’t keep extra dog treats or anything of a food nature in this room. Still, years have gone by without this room piquing the Munchkins’ interest. No jumping over this baby gate, nothing.

     This has changed. Due to his success with the piano room gate, Ivan decided the work room gate was fair game. With a bit of exploratory paw tapping, he found this barrier could be pulled toward him and easily breached.  He positively smiles with satisfaction when it hits the floor and he trots over it into this new territory. Now the workroom door has to be closed most of the time, and Ivan occasionally sniffs at it and grumbles under his breath when he walks by. I can’t resist putting up the gate now and then to let Ivan sharpen his skills. He really is an irresistibly cute and clever little guy.