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Sun 22 Feb, 2004 09:18 am
We have a 2 1/2 year old Staffordshire Terrier. In spite of his breed he's a big baby until he needs to be big man on campus.
A few months ago he kept falling up our basement stairs because he's basically a klutz but also because the tile floor is a bit slippery.
He has never had a problem coming up the stairs to our bedroom area because they are carpeted. The stairs have 4 steps, a landing and then 10 steps to the bedroom area. Starting last Thursday night he's been refusing to climb the last set of stairs and gets very upset..whiney...and out of breath from stress. We've tried coaxing him with his favorite toy, with a dog treat, with praise when he comes up part way etc but he turns around and goes back down to try over again. My hubby wound up carrying him up the other night. He weighs 90# so it wouldn't be something I could do but I sure don't want to have to listen to his whining if I have to come downstairs in the middle of the night. I had to do that last night and wound up sleeping in the livingroom because I didn't want him to wake up the rest of the family.
Any ideas on how we can cure him of this fear would be appreciated.
Has he seen the vet recently? He could have a pulled muscle or anemia or an underactive thyroid--or some other physical cause for his inertia.
Maybe there's a ghost up there.
Sorry just a thought.
I dont know much about this sort of thing, but sometimes my dog refuses to cross the kitchen floor. We determined that it was because his nails had become to long, and that it may have been hurting him to cross the floor (which is tiles, rather than carpeting like in the rest of the house). When we cut his nails he has no problem.
Are your dogs nails very long? Are the stairs in question hardwood, or is the rest of the flooring? Am I way off? (probably the last one)
Perhaps your dog fell down the stairs or something, and just developed a fear of them.
carpet the uncarpeted stairs....?
See a vet. I don't like the falling up the steps and now being out of breath part. He could have fractured a rib or punctured a lung or something.
Put carpet treads on the stairs, make sure nails are trimmed regularly.
If nothing physical is wrong, coach him up the steps with some food goodie just out of his reach.
Maybe the dog has pain. Could he have arthritis?
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