The other day while I had the vacuum out, I decided to keep on going down the basement stairs and so on, into the laundry room. Usually, when I am vacuuming, Rockwell attacks the attachment used to clean the wood floors (as he does with the Swiffer) but he stays clear of the beater bar attachment that I use on the carpets. Because I was vacuuming wooden steps and heading to a tile floor, I left the beater bar upstairs. As well, since the baby gate came down months ago, we have been keeping the basement door shut but he hasn't seemed that interested in heading down there anyway.

So there I was, vacuuming in the laundry room having left the basement door open, when suddenly I see Rockwell peeking around the edge of the stairs at me. He looked pretty cute but I spoke to him and warned him that he shouldn't come down any further. Of course, his curiosity got the better of him and he slowly made it around the corner, sniffing very tentatively as he went. I noticed too, that he kept his hind legs as far back as possible, stretching himself out so he could get a sniff of what was coming but hanging on to the floor with his back toes "just in case". He even goes into this pose outside sometimes, when he is faced with something unusual and thinks he should keep his options open for making a quick getaway.