Climbing stairs? No problemo!

Our stairs

Well Kai decided he was fed up with being left behind at the bottom of the stairs crying about two weeks ago, when he made it all the way up both parts of the stairs by himself. I was amazed watching him motor up them. Seeing as he's really only tall enough to reach the next step it's amazing that he can do it at all!! It's even more impressive because our stairs are open ones so he can see the floor all the time. Eric had sort of showed him what to do putting his front paws up on the next step.

We hadn't pushed it with him because we don't really want him going upstairs whilst we're still working on his toilet-training.

Kai, three steps down

onto the lower set of steps

Of course coming down is a different matter entirely, but he has gradually plucked up the courage and is now starting to get himself down regularly. He lost confidence after the first time he managed it and went back to crying at the top until Eric went and got him. That was a week or more ago, but in the last couple of days he has got back into it again.
It is really tricky for him because he's so small. Just another example of how brave and bold he is.


Even though he couldn't get himself down he would insist on going up at every opportunity. So we bought a baby gate. This was rested across the bottom of the stairs as a temporary measure until Eric fitted it properly..

Done i

Of course he tried to climb it and ended up with it falling on him. We then put a large box in front of the propped up baby gate so it wouldn't fall over. The clever little blighter got round this by going round the back of the chair, underneath the stairs and then hopped onto the first step from the back, turned round and then carried on going up the stairs!  I watched in disbelief as he worked out how to get past the obstruction. It seems as we have another intelligent problem solver on our hands.


All things considered it is probably best that he can now get himself back down the stairs whenever he goes up..... not sure what we'd try next!

Click here for a video of Kai coming down the stairs.