Breaching the barricades

"Let me in."

We have two baby gates: one indoors, one outdoors.

When Rosie is eating in the kitchen and Angus is eating in the front hall, we prop a baby gate in the kitchen doorway to keep them apart. When I go upstairs, we prop the gate at the bottom of the stairs to keep Angus from following me. (He likes to grab my socks.) When we take the dogs into the basement for morning coffee, we prop the gate at the bottom of the basement stairs to keep Angus from escaping.

When we are outside, we prop the gate at the bottom of the porch stairs to keep Angus (who hates the cold) from dashing back to the house.

We don't wedge the gate into each doorway because it's a pain to constantly change the width of it for different locations. But we might have to start.

Angus has been with us three weeks, and in that time he has learned to breach each one of those barricades.  Outside, he circumvents the gate by going around to the side of the stairs and squeezing under the banisters.  Inside, he merely hurls his little (but constantly-growing) body against the gate or swipes at it with a gigantic paw until it slides down enough for him to climb over it.

Just now I was upstairs, brushing my teeth, and suddenly there he was, was at my side, and I realized that the last of the barricades had fallen.

The only thing he cannot yet do is go down the stairs. Once he masters that, the house will be his oyster, his kingdom, and we will merely be his servants, following behind, picking up torn paper and chewed puffy toys, bowing to his majesty. All hail Angus the conqueror!