Rob’s Basement

On occasion dP, La Niña and I head over to Rob the Neighbour’s house for dinner or snacks. We have this thing going on where Rob likes to eat my cupcakes/brownies/muffins and we devour his pie/ice cream/cookies. Our relationship revolves around sweets.

On the weekend Rob and Joanne had a pie night and we all headed over to taste some of their home-made yummies. While there La Niña constructed a mountain of pie crust pieces on the floor and instead of sweeping it up we decided to assign Stryder to clean up duty. We brought him over and he performed his duty with precision and gusto. He then proceeded to test the softness of Rob’s bed, Rob’s chair and the sofa (with Rob’s permission of course).

At some point Rob and myself headed into the basement. While downstairs we heard Joanne say: “You guys have gotta come and see this…”

Our normally bold / fearless / happy-go-lucky Stryder was standing at the top of the stairs shaking. I’ve never seen him afraid before; and, no matter what we did he would not cross the door frame and head downstairs.

Skip to last night when Rob invited us over to sample some lemon meringue pie. This time we brought both Stryder and Kima over and the two of them were clearly excited to show off for Rob and wrestled in the backyard until they were panting from exhaustion. It was a very high energy evening full of mischief and fun.

We discussed Stryder’s reaction to Rob’s basement and decided to do a test to see how both dogs would react this time around. dP started running around and initiated the “chase game” which got both dogs excited as they chased dP all over the yard. At the end of the game dP led the dogs into the house and to the basement.

dP ran as fast as he could down the stairs and excitedly called to the dogs downstairs as if he was looking at a basement was full of treats, sticks and bones waiting for the two of them to feast upon. Styder went down two steps and was shaking so badly he couldn’t continue. He backed up and wouldn’t cross the barrier again.

Kima was shaking and wouldn’t even go near the door frame. Because of her background, Kima is a little more matter of fact than Stryder and promptly decided that from that point on that she would stay in the backyard and not consider any offers of treats, games or fun that would bring her near Rob’s basement. Stryder considered offers but wouldn’t cross the door frame.

We all found their reaction very interesting. Our dogs clearly have a problem with Rob’s basement and we don’t know why. It’s not like it’s a dark and scary place. Rob’s basement is as light and airy as ours and even has the same type of flooring. The stairs are carpeted and easy to use; if our dogs can run up and down the laminate stairs in our house they can certainly go down Rob’s with ease.