random truths – Day 1,008 (Tuesday) – kamikaze canine

Over the weekend, there was a purchase of possibly the greatest invention for front stairs in winter. The “Sure-Step Stair Tread” holds great promise with the rubber treads for added traction, deep groove design that allows rain and melting snow to drain, and black rubber that absorbs heat to melt snow/ice quickly.

This miracle of modern marketing seems like the answer to the problem of the icy concrete front steps. We’ll see. They haven’t been weather tested at The BungaLowell yet.

The kamikaze canine at rest.

The tags were removed and the treads aligned on the steps. They looked pretty good. There was comfort in the idea of not falling on my arse when the weather gets wintery. There was a small feeling of satisfaction over the $18 investment. 

Canine Overlord Winston, however, is far from satisfied. He has done everything in his power to avoid stepping on them. He recoils when his paw touches one of them. He tippy toed down the steps to the yard along the couple inches of uncovered concrete on the edge of the step. When he would go down the steps at all, that is. A couple times he stood there like a statue until I carried him down the stairs.

Monday night, after several trips down and up the stairs over a couple days, Winston stepped out gingerly. At the middle step of the three, he hurled himself off the side of the set of stairs to the bricks below. He yelped. I shrieked. He went about his potty business, made it up the stairs, reentered the house and reclined in his bed.

Later, he whimpered when he moved. A couple times it was an outright yowl. It was a scary. At bedtime, Win somehow made it upstairs on his own while I was still brushing my teeth.

The stair treads
 that inspired a leap.

The usual bedtime routine is the practice of the doggy commands sit, stay, come, and paw, which earn cookies. It started years ago when Moosie would wake up during the night with a bad stomach, sometimes to the point of being sick. Bedtime cookies seemed to help keep the acid at bay. It was cruel to give cookies to one and not the other, and the game developed.

Monday night, Win wouldn’t let me take his stylish and seasonal sweater off him. He yelped. He let me put him onto the bed, but he whimpered and yelped as he positioned himself to sleep. During the night, he whimpered and woke me up a couple times. This morning, there was more whimpering with position changes, and yelping when I tried to pick him up. I ended up coaxing him into his bed, which was folded around him like a soft taco shell and used to transport him downstairs. Once downstairs, he didn’t react when I gently tried to check for pain spots so I couldn’t even tell a general area that caused him pain.

He spent most of the day sleeping behind my desk chair or in front of the heat vent under the sink cabinet. A couple times when he moved and squealed, I wondered if I should have called the vet. Luckily, he seemed better as the day wore on. Hope isn’t exactly a plan, but I hope he is just bruised from his blind leap off the stairs.

The stair treads have been edged over to provide more space for canine footing, essentially defeating their purpose for human usage. Maybe I can sneak them over bit by bit with time. He went down the exposed part of the concrete steps by himself after his supper, and then back up again with no whimpering. Hopefully, the little kamikaze canine is on the mend.