The Magical Upstairs

To preface this story, all you need to know is that we live in a basement apartment, and the people that live above us also have a dog. Dux happens to be obsessed with this dog (his name is Charlie). To Dux, upstairs is this amazing, unobtainable place wherein lies all of his hopes and dreams. He knows that Charlie is there, and his past experiences have taught him that there will ALWAYS be bones there. And probably food. And really nice humans. I imagine him looking like this whenever he thinks about it:

So anyway, there's this little hallway between the upstairs and downstairs where we come in and out that separates the two living spaces. EVERY time Dux comes inside, instead of going immediately down the stairs to his home, he goes out of his way to run UP to the neighbors' door. 

There's probably a ghost or some other magical creature living in this hallway, because on occasion, both or one of our doors won't close all the way when we think they are shut (it probably just has to do with air pressure or other scientifical things, but I like to imagine a ghost pushing the doors open).

 To Dux, this is the most amazing thing that could possibly happen. Because when this happens, he has free access to upstairs. We never even notice when the door isn't shut, so if Dux by chance is near the door when this happens, I'm assuming it looks something like this: 

 







I'm sure that he tentatively sniffs around for a minute, testing to make sure we don't know what he's doing. When he's sure we can't see him, he bolts.

He frantically runs up the stairs, knowing that this is his one chance and it won't last for long.

So we're just sitting down in the living room chillin like this, until we hear it.

Above us, chaos is happening. "Ummm, do you see Dux?"

Our neighbors tell us that whenever he gets up there, he immediately runs for Charlie's food bowl (what a well-mannered dog I've raised). He frantically eats as much as he can. At this point, we've usually registered what's going on and are on our way up the stairs to retrieve him. But not before he finds and steals one of Charlie's bones.

I'm pretty sure that he can sense how close we are and how much time he has left to cause as much destruction up there as possible, because right when we get up there, he casually walks out, bone in mouth, wiggling his butt like he's the happiest puppy in the world, looking like this:

"Can I keep it???? Can I can I????

Obviously, we're not impressed by his antics.

Oh, and cooincidentally while I was working on this very post, this happened at ONE in the MORNING. That was a first. I can only imagine what our poor neighbors were thinking as they were probably woken up by Charlie and Dux's joyous reunion in the middle of the night, when we all least expected it. Well played, Dux. Well played.