Afraid of Stairs

[paulabeans]

Hi all!

I have a question....is it unusual that Molly is afraid to go down the flight of stairs in our house? She zooms up on her own, but we always have to carry her down. Is this something we have to train her to do?

Thanks so much,
Paula :)

[sakirby]

Paula,

I have the same problem with Oscar. He races up the stairs but, will not go down them. I carry him right now, and am just hoping that when he gets bigger he can go down. I think maybe they are just too small? I look forward to any responses people have on this once since Oscar has the same problem. :rolleyes:

[franp]

I think it is a matter of learning and growing.Letting them get confident to go down the stairs.

It must be scarey to look DOWN the stairs; maybe it takes more co-ordination?
We have a long flight of stairs to the dogpark; I do remeber that it did take a long time for Dari to learn how to walk the steps.

My friend Beth tells a story about two of her dogs;Yoshi would lead Kirby (the puppy) upstairs and then leave him there. Kirby did not yet know how to navigate the stairs!It was like Yoshi KNEW that and was playing a dirty trick :lol: on this poor pup..

[Kelly+Manja]

when manja was little he also had a harder time going down the stairs than up them. I think its something puppies overcome with age. It probably looks like the grand canyon to them from the top!
Its also probably best not to let very young puppies go up and down too many flights of stairs repeatedly as their joints have not yet fully formed and might be affected by the stress.

[Carolyn]

We don't have any stairs in our home but we do have river rock walls in the backyard anad there is one set of rock stairs about 20 feet long that go from the top of our yard to the bottom. Abby and Ferris never had any fear but I went crazy watching them and worrying about them knocking themselves silly on the rocks. Never had any injuries, thank goodness. These guys are all so different. Carolyn

[adora's mom]

Err...Adora was terrified to go down the stairs until last week. There was minor incident about a month ago; she was feeling brave and made it down 3 steps before sliding down the rest of the way on her stomach like a kid on a sled. Luckily we were rearranging the front room and there was a couch pillow on the landing - which she crashed in to head first. She had to take a month off from going down the stairs after that. She's pretty confident now though - I think her little legs just weren't quite doing the job before!

Poor kid...of course, I wasn't much help since I was laughing so hard...I'm a mean mom :rolleyes:

[paulabeans]

Thanks everyone for all the responses. I guess it will take awhile until she is more confident to go down.

Lesley - you made me laugh with that story! I could exactly picture what this must have looked like - so funny! (We can laugh because we know shes okay!!)

[gilazno]

Biggie was also scared. he learned it was ok by watching two of his buddies storming up and down the steps..i guess he figured, well if they can do it so can i!!!

[Lisa]

As was our English.

We didn’t let him actually start going up and down stairs very much until he was much older ( 6-7 months) because it’s so hard on their soft bones but after about 7 months - no problem going up – just not sure about the “down” part. Liver treats did the trick as did following some of the older dogs that were part of the "park pals" ... amazing how the young learn from the older ones and don't want to feel - "Left out".

Anyway, we soon found that on most days, you would think that the stairs were designed by “Nascar,” the way he barreled down them!