Dog's Strange Feat

      I have two schnauzers, as most of you know. This morning I came downstairs and let both of them out as I usually do. Both went back upstairs as they usually do. When my wife came downstairs the younger black dog came with her. She couldn't get the older dog to come down, so she closed the gate on the stairs figuring that otherwise the younger dog would return upstairs and the two of them would get into mischief. Later, when I came in, my wife explained the problem and asked me to go up and bring the older dog downstairs and make sure he hadn't done anything he shouldn't have. I turned to go upstairs and here came the older dog into the kitchen. So I figured he had come down and my wife simply missed it. "No way", was her response. He was sitting on the first dtep from the landing (about mid-way up the stairs) and refused to come down further, so I shut the gate. So I immediately looked at the door between the parlour and the diningroom, but it was tightly shut, so he hadn't come down the front stairs and entered that way. Did he jump the gate? I suppose it would be possible, but from that heigth it appears to me that he would have hit the bathroom door when he lit; the hallway is rather narrow at that point. No one heard anything and we were standing only a few feet away in the kitchen. Interesting if he did make that jump; but that has to be the only logical explaination. But thats quite a jump for a small dog and in a rather confined space.