Am I being played? : )

We have a flight of uncarpeted stairs between the main floor of our house and the bedrooms. Martin has a comfy bed in our room in an ex-pen, alongside our own grey. So one of our first jobs has been to teach Martin how to come down stairs. After trying a few strategies of varying success, we hit upon one that worked: my husband taped down non-skid rectangles on each stair and I made the task more attractive by putting a chunk of rotisserie chicken on every other stair. I went into the front room to get Martin's lead to help coax him, but came back to find him nearly all the way down the stairs, lips-a-smackin'! He seems to have made the connection: if I'm at the top of the stairs, she puts really awesome stuff all the way to the bottom! Woo hoo! So now during the day we have to head him off at the pass as he tries to scoot up the stairs to initiate the sequence! Today he managed to get past me and I decided to call his bluff. As he whined at the top of the stairs, I sat quietly to see what he would do. I'm glad to say he's not the stubborn sort - he came down without chicken-motivation in just a few minutes. Then we had a big celebration and treats to reinforce his efforts. I still have not sorted out how to upload video of Martin (hope to soon), but here he is with a few of his toys.