Doggie days

Well, today Midas has gone "home".
We've been doggie-sitting almost two weeks, for our elderly friend from Kalso.
She fell & broke her hip on May 19 and has just been moved to a 3rd hospital since then.
At least now she is close to her family. I'm sure this will help her recover quicker.

Anyhow, my husband (mostly) and I, have been looking after her year old golden retriever, Midas.

We have our own dog- Spike, he's an 11 yr old akita/border collie cross. He's not used to sharing his home & family, so I was a bit anxious about how it'd work out.

At 1st Spike was pretty grumbly, watching Midas ( who was constantly moving, ) was
tiring him out (us too)! We had to keep Midas in the fenced patio area (Spike's pen) and
put Spike inside the house, at the beginning.
When we tried to bring Midas in the house we learned that he was scared to go up our stairs. So we couldn't get him in the house the 1st couple of days.
One night we were out in the front yard, ( hoping to see the space station pass over us) and I managed to coax Midas up the front stairs, and got him used to them...so now we could bring him inside without a struggle. AND we got to see the space shuttle fly over us!

Anyhow, a couple of nights ago, I set my mind on getting him up the BACK stairs. So armed with a few Marrow bone treats, I tried coaxing & pleading...no luck.
He can be pretty stubborn, but he sure wanted the goodies!
I was determined to get him up the stairs, so I put one treat on each of the top 3 steps, just out of reach. While he was stretching (not taking his back feet of the ground) and trying to reach the nearest one, I slowly lifted his back leg off the ground & put it on the 1st step, then I did the same with his other rear leg. He started shaking & crouching, but I persisted and moved his front paws (one at a time) to the next step. It took a lot of doing, but I eventually manoevered him up four steps, and then he was so close to the top, he grabbed the treats and got onto the porch. So proud of himself!

Here we are 2 days later and he's running up and down the stairs like there was never an issue!

And just like that, he's gone, the long drive to his new home, where his own family will be around. "Mom" and Midas will be reunited in couple of days, to start a new chapter in their lives- "Recovering".