Ahhhh!!!

[Valkie]

hello again!

I seem to be running into a consistant problem with my pups. They are 15wks and I haven't been able to start house breaking them because of the stupidest little thing.

I have a split level house and all the door to the outside are on the bottom level, the pups stay in the kitchen which is on the upper level. The only reason why they stay there is because they are scared to go down stairs!

There are only two steps. The smaller of the two has no problem jumping on my lap on the top stair and jumping the rest of the way down, but the bigger one won't even do that. I've tried to get the to go up them first, but that only works if I put them on the first step.

I don't think that it's because they are too small... they will jump twice the height of the stairs without even thinking twice about it and they are up to 21 and 26lbs.

Thoughts?

 

[Barb04]

Have you tried using treats so see if they might come down the steps?

 

[AndrewF]

Jake was the same way with the steps to the front door. He'd go up them fine, but he wouldn't go down. It took a hand-full of treats and about a half hour to finally get him down. Once he went down once though, he never hesitated again.

Specifically, what I did was placed a couple of treats on each step going down - and made sure he saw me doing it. There was a lot of whining but eventually his love of treats overcame his fear of the stairs and he succeeded.

Hope this helps.

Andrew

 

[Valkie]

I'll have to try that one! Thanks.

 

[Adrienne]

It was really funny, I went to visit a friend this past weekend and had Gunnar with me. Well she lives up about twenty stairs straight up all at once. Gunnar took one look at those stairs and BOLTED, all panicky. So I picked him up (not so easy now that he is over 40 lbs) and carried him up the stairs. When it was time to go it was the same problem, he was so panicked that this time he cried and struggled the whole way down. I would have worked with him but I just didn't have the time then and there. At my home we only have three stairs to outside and he has no trouble with those. I plan real soon to take him to my cousins house so we can work on her stairs.
Good luck and let me know what works for you so I can try it too