I love having a smart puppy!

Something that happens with me and my dogs is that they always tend to follow me from room to room. They're like little Lhasa Apso shadows, and I can always count on them being close by. These shadows also tend to have weird habits that bug me.
Oliver used to lick his feet and toes. I hate the sound of that, so I'd always make him stop licking. Eventually, he figured out that by licking in another room, I wouldn't tell him to stop until he was ready to stop. Similarly, if he wasn't in the same room with me, I knew he was elsewhere in the house licking his feet and toes. Daisy and Cooper both had/have the same kind of habits and whatnot, but they didn't/haven't figured out how to indulge without my telling them to stop yet.
Tonight, as I was sitting on the bed sipping my tea and watching some Gladiator (because YUM Russell Crowe in a skirt), I realized that the dear shadow, Elliot, wasn't on the bed with me. I could see Cooper laying on the floor outside my bedroom door, but Elliot was nowhere in sight. This raised my suspicions. I got up and checked the bedroom. No Elliot. I walked out the door to see if she was laying on the floor out of view of the bed. No Elliot. I went to make my way downstairs, and before starting my descent, I saw her. She was laying lengthwise across one of the stairs. Her head up and looking at me like she was surprised.
"What are you doing, pups?" I asked.
She immediately turned her head to her front feet, grabbed whatever was between said feet with her mouth, and started down the stairs. At that moment, I knew exactly what she was up to, because Elliot's favorite habit is bringing sticks into my house and chewing them up into little bits and then leaving them hither and yon for us to step on and pick up. She didn't run far, and I was able to get the stick out of her mouth and trade her a treat for it.
Elliot is another smart one, you guys, and that will prove to be interesting over the next several years.