Why did I teach Mickey he could go down the stairs?

Yesterday evening I gave Mickey a bath. He had rolled around in the grass for about a week and Jamal had mentioned two nights in a row how stinky he was.

After the post-bath nap I took Mickey outside for a quick walk.

When we got home our neighbor was watering her newly planted seeds in the front 'yard' of her townhouse. At this point it is 85% mud/15% plants. Mickey was very interested in getting in the muddy yard but I kept him out of it. He sat and watched her watering the ground until I grew bored of it and we said good night and left to return upstairs.

I carried Mickey to the first landing and then decided he should walk the rest of the way up the stairs. I often take off his leash for the stairs for a couple reasons: I can do a whole flight at once to give him incentive to do it quickly too, and he doesn't trip over the leash and fall down (has happened on the stairs before).

I start up the stairs. Mickey watches me and starts to follow, then remembers the mud and goes down the stairs! Going down the outside stairs was something we only started practicing today... but he showed great aptitude for it tonight.

He trots down the stairs and I follow. I don't want to chase him and have this turn into the new fun game (run away and Grace chases me), plus I had an idea where he was headed.

from flickr (not Mickey)

Sure enough, right to the center of the mud patch. Luckily he came to me with a simple 'touch' command and I scooped him up. Once home I had to struggle with him, first in the half bath, then the kitchen sink, to wash his muddy paws. He struggled more for the paw rinse for the entire bath... le sigh.