I love to explore.
In my short existence, I’ve learned that around every corner is something new to sniff, or chew, or pounce on. Sometimes in rapid succession in various combinations. Whenever I get the chance, I like to explore the house… but there’s a problem… doors.
Who had the big idea to invent doors? Especially doors I can’t get through. They really cramp my exploring style.
For example, when I first wake up I’m stuck in my kennel because the door is closed. If I’m on my game I’m awake before dad’s alarm goes off. He appreciates that because he doesn’t want to sleep that long anyway, soI’ll sort of move around or jiggle the kennel walls untill he rolls over and says, “Geez, what time is it?” (which means good morning). Then he’ll open the door and I’ll come out, stretch, and then jump up for some kisses and pets. Usually I do the kissing part after dad picks me up, and he returns my affection with phrases like, “bleh!” or, “not in my nose!”
Then he says it’s time to go outside, and I run across the bedroom with Raven and we head downstairs. If I’m lucky I can grab one of mom’s slippers and carry it along. Mom likes it when her slippers are in different parts of the house, so I try to help when I can.
The Outside Door
We run down the stairs and through the kitchen to get to the outside door. Now the outside door is tricky, because it looks like you can run right through it, but you can’t. I tried — it squishes my nose. So we’re stuck again at the door.
See the string of bells hanging there? Those are for me to jingle when I want to go outside and we’re not already in the process of going outside.
The idea is that it helps me to tell mom and dad that I need to go outside to do my business; but I learned it’s better than that. It really means if I jingle it someone will come and open the door — for any reason! Sometimes I really do need to “go” but sometimes I just want to play and it still works! It’s a great system.
The Rain Box Door
After we’ve completed our morning outside-then-eat routine, we go back upstairs, sneak past sleepy mom, and go into the rain room. This room is different because it has a rain box on one end that dad goes into every day to make himself smell like soap. Personally, I’m fine with him smelling like dad, or like me or Raven if we’ve been playing, or especially like food around dinner time. But dad likes the soap smell I guess.
It seems like a lot of work just to smell like soap. Some day I’ll teach him how to just roll in it and be done. It’s so much more efficient.
Anyway, we go into this room and, after a quick trip into the “place-of-hanging-clothes-I-must-not-chew-on,” dad gets into the rain box and it starts raining. It has a door too, sort of like the outside door that you can see through, except this one wiggles if I push on it.
It always rains like cats and frogs in there, but dad doesn’t seem to mind.
I usually sleep like a rock– er, assume a defensive position on the rug outside the rain box and wait for him to finish.
I also try to listen for when the rain stops because I know the door will open pretty soon. That lets me be sure I’m right in the way and getting out of the box is as ackward as possible.
We also have a game where sometimes he pretends to forget to close the rain box door and I’ll jump in, get my paws wet, and then run around the tile floor leaving tracks everywhere. Dad likes that game too.
The Office Door
During the day when dad is at work I like to stay with him (he commutes to an upstairs office where the fish live).
The office has a special door that looks like a jail cell (yes I’ve seen them on TV. I know what a police dog is.) Unlike the other gates around the house, this one opens to let us walk through.
It also has a tiny door at the bottom to let fat leprechauns out if you have that sort of trouble.
Oh yeah, you may notice there are bells hanging on that door too. It’s sort of a theme around here — doors and bells, that is.
The Mom Room Door
If you sort of squint through the bars of the office door and look down the hall you can see mom’s sewing room door. It has a “baby gate” across it, which worked pretty well to keep me out until I realized I’m not a baby so it doesn’t apply to me! Now if I’m excited I just sail right over it. But we leave it there because Raven can’t jump it, and it’s more fun to be where she is because she’s edible and the stuff in mom’s room isn’t supposed to be. 
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