Sula climbs a ladder

Yesterday, a team of volunteers returned to my house to finish installing a radiant barrier and weatherize the doors, windows and electrical outlets. This is all part of a month-long effort called Historic Green, and part of the Holy Cross neighborhood's effort to become carbon negative. But it meant having a bunch of college students in an out of the attic all day. I knew Sula would have a hard time with this. Yet even I was surprised at what happened when the crew wanted to show me something briefly in the attic. While one volunteer held Sula's leash (because she had refused to go to her crate with all the noise above her) I climbed the fourteen foot ladder to the attic. And once I got to the top, I looked down to see Sula struggling to get closer to me. She was still on the floor at that point, but she clearly had been impressed with my climbing and was ready to follow me. "We better make this quick," I said, and when I looked down the ladder again, Sula was midway up.

"It will be really hard to get her back down the ladder," one of the volunteers said. So I climbed down to meet her, and then struggled to guide her backwards down the ladder to the floor. The good news is that she was completely exhausted and took a nap for most of the rest of the day.

I've see video of pit bulls climbing trees, and one time, during an attack of separation anxiety, Sula climbed a chain link fence to get to me. (This is why she is always on a leash.) But I'm still getting my head around her ability to climb a ladder. I'm seriously thinking of getting her some kind of jungle gym for the yard.