Our Frankie is still having trouble with stairs. He is almost 7 months now. He will go up and down the smaller set of stairs but the stairs that go up to our bedroom are bigger and he will not go up or down. They are hardwood stairs and we have stair treads taped down but he just won't do it. He will stand and bark. My husband and I feel that we might have created this problem because we carry him up and down so that he can sleep in his crate in our bedroom. It was fine when he was smaller but now he is almost 50#'s and i just can't carry him anymore. Does anyone have any suggestions that we might be able to try??????
We had the same problem when Joy was 6 or 7 months old. We live in an upper floor apartment and there is one smaller and one bigger stair to get to the ground level. We used to carry him when he was small but then he wanted to try out climbing by himself. I noticed he was scared of looking down the stairs from the top (I guess it was the height that scared him), but he started climbing UP the smaller stairs by himself. Within a week or two he could get up and down the smaller stairs by himself. But he was still scared of the bigger stairs, so I carried him down and set him 4 or 5 steps from the ground. He was comfortable with those few steps down by himself. After that I just increased the number of steps he needed to take by himself to reach the ground level everyday. It took only a week or two for him to become comfortable. Then we had to teach him not to run on the stairs. Hope that helps with Frankie.
Use treats, one step at a time. Going up is easier so try that first. Place some treats just out of reach so your pup has to climb one step and then keep adding steps as confidence grows.
Thank you so much for all of your advice i will definitely try the treats and work on going up the stairs first before we try bringing him down. I did think it was just maturity and confidence issue but wanted to see what others have tried before. Thank you again!
Up is definitely easier for them. We live in a flat so have stairs whenever we go out. We did the same and carried Luna until 6 months but we did let her do a couple stairs once a week from 5 months so that she could practice. Since she had to use the stairs to be able to go out I think it helped her become confident and overcome it quicker
