The Original Baby: Huck has learned to jump up.

Huck, our original and first baby, has always been a jumper on people's legs. He just wishes he could get up to your face and give you a hug and a kiss... But there are other places where Huck cannot jump. He cannot jump into your lap if you're sitting on a chair. He cannot jump up on the fireplace hearth and warm himself by the fire. If you put him on the bed, he'll stand at the edge afraid to jump down unless you say the word "treat". People will try and coax him up onto the couch and it's like he doesn't even know what they are doing when they pat that space next to where they're sitting.

This, it turns out, has been a blessing, because Huck never gets on people's furniture when they dog-sit, he can't jump on the furniture and bother company when they come over invited or not, and because we rarely put him in our bed (except for infrequent occasion that he's just had a bath and we want to wrestle with him as he burrows under the covers) he never sits besided the bed begging to be picked up.That said....

There was an incident a couple of weeks ago where Huck accidentally bounced his ball onto the love seat. He cried at the ball from the ground and when I turned around for a moment I found that he'd jumped on the love seat and was laying down chewing his ball. I turned around for one second longer to put my computer on the coffee table so I could go over and make him get down and to my surprise he was walking along the built-ins BEHIND the love seat!! Since then we hadn't seen him get on the furniture, but in the last two days or so when his ball has gotten stuck up in Michael's recliner, on the couch and last night on the COFFEE TABLE (what?!) Huck has figured out that he CAN jump up there and get the ball himself. Now it's sort of become the game to GET the ball on stuff so that he can have the fun of jumping up to get it.

Yes, last night we found the dog that used to cry at his ball from the ground, standing in the recliner and crying at this ball on the floor! It seems that we have a little monster on our hands just in time for Halloween. Oh Hucklebear you are quite the stinker!