Our apartment block has stairs that we have to go up and down; about fifteen in total to get to and from our apartment. They're shiny marble tiles. I've done lots of work around ensuring the pups go up and down them slowly, in order to keep the impact of their joints to a minimum. It's just not practical to have to carry them up and down anymore, and they hate being carried by me, so tend to wriggle, which makes it dangerous. We've had no problems until a couple of nights ago, coming back home with wet feet. I dry them off as best I can before getting to the stairs, but it's clearly not bone dry. Shadow went down perfectly normally, but for some reason, Willow was a bit hesitant. Because of this, she had her feet splayed out wider than normal, and that made her slip. She didn't fall, or do any damage, but just the slip itself shook her up and she wouldn't continue. Now, she won't go down them at all, for all the treats in the world. When I tried, she started to cry. Going up she is fine. So, I've resorted to carrying her - which, like I said, isn't great because she wriggles and could make me fall. I do have the option of walking a slightly longer way and coming in from below, so we always walk up the stairs, and I'll do that for now, but it's not going to help her forget her fear. Maybe doing that and giving her lots of treats for going up might, in time, help her? Or find other stairs (somewhere - not sure where!) that have grip on and practice with those. I'm not sure that would break her association with these particular stairs, though. Because they're communal, I don't have any option for putting a non-slip surface on them.
Oh dear. Tatze had an incident coming in to our back door and now she always stops and waits to be persuaded in with a treat, they don't forget. Start with really tasty treats to get her moving then, eventually, an ordinary treat will do the trick. (She ran in with a huge stick from the garden which jarred her jaw on the door frame - it must have really hurt )
Oh goodness. That is potentially a problem... Shiny slippy marble tiles sound pretty dangerous to me; long-term isn't it something the rental association should look at?
Poor Willow..hope she is Ok and gets over her hesitancy soon. I guess she just needs to gain a bit of confidence, in some similar, but easier steps quite quickly so that an aversion to steps doesn't become more of a learned behaviour. I am sure it's only a temporary blip though, Willow trusts you to help her through this (plus of course she gets extra yummy treats for being a brave girl!)
There is no rental association to talk of. The apartments are all privately owned. We have a management company for maintenance etc, all of which is voted on and paid for by the owners. The floors need to be easy to clean because of the snow in the winter, and they're not slippery for humans wearing shoes, so they're not going to make any changes for the two dogs that live in the building! There are some very shallow, carpeted steps in the gondola station which would be perfect for training, but the building is locked up until it opens at the end of June. So, I'll have to have a look around for some others. I have a nagging suspicion it will just be ours that she freaks out about, though, so training elsewhere won't be that helpful.
Ah, tricky. I have a similar thing with Charlie and a certain flight of steps. Going up is his problem. It does not matter how many other flights of steps he goes up, it's THOSE steps that are the problem. I would try to work on those steps. Although you can't put anything down long term can you temporarily? Make the steps look, smell and feel different, then fade out your covering. It's a terrible faff, I'm afraid...
I have some non-slip matting somewhere. It's not very big, but I could put it down a couple of steps at a time and work with that. A project for the weekend, I think....
I know this isn't solving the problem but faced with a similar situation I have been known to sit on the steps and gather up child/dog in arms and bum shuffle down the steps. Or go down with said child/dog next to me so I am on the same level. Admittedly that is mostly indoor steps and carpeted, but having a dodgy hip my self I feel safe doing this. Thought I would just chuck that in the mix
Thanks everyone. I tried going down the steps from where I live (it's a bit of a strange configuration - I live on the ground floor, but above the garage, so I can get out by going up and through the front door, which is two floors up, or by going down one flight and out through the garage). My thinking was, she fell on the flight of stairs above the apartment, so she might not have a problem with the ones below. Well, it was a nice thought, but no banana. I tried cajoling. I tried putting a treat on each step. Nada. In the end, I went back up and clipped her lead on, walked away from the stairs and then back towards them with a chirpy, no-nonsense, "Come on, Willow!". She trotted down before she even thought about it. I'm pretty sure we've not beaten it yet, but it was a small success!
Sorry she had the slip that's created the issue and glad she wasn't hurt ,but you know sometimes I think the no nonsense ,confident approach gives THEM confidence....I've seen it with Dexter in a different context ....reactive on his lead....I have all the guns in the arsenal to cope now but then a surprise dog pops up round a corner when we aren't expecting it.... a chirpy 'come on Dex,let's go' does it and I think ,you little monkey, you give me a hard time if you get an advance on a visual approach,I really should just march you in x
I was thinking about this - and made a connection to Charlie and ramps. Not a fan of ramps, isn't Charlie. But what I did was cover the ramp with his towel - he loves his towel. He has been heavily reinforced for going on his towel. He trotted up the ramp covered with his towel no bother. Now I don't need the towel. So, I'd get a few non slip mats (rubber door mats would be ideal), cut them into strips that would fit the steps, and reinforce heavily for standing on these - for quite a while. Then I'd put them in a line down one section of the stairs and see....then, I'd remove every other mat....and so on.
Yesterday, I thought this had just been a blip. I had her lead on and she trotted down with not a thought. This morning, I took some recycling out to the bins near us and the dogs came along - but she wouldn't walk back in the door of the building. I tried to be matter-of-fact and walk in, saying, "Come on, Willow!", but she just stayed outside, crying. So, I took her back in the other way, which means she only has to walk up stairs. So, as much as I know I can mask it with a lead, it still is a problem. So, lots of positive association training needs to be done. I just need to be very careful I don't poison things that she likes. For example, I've been working super hard on a hand target, and she absolutely loves this now, from being quite ambivalent about it. I had a thought that I could use this to get her down the stairs, but then I thought her negative associations with the stairs are probably stronger than her - newly acquired - positive associations with the hand target. The last thing I want to do is turn around that positive thing and make it something to be nervous of. I'm pretty sure, if I tried to use the target now to get her down the stairs, it would do nothing except poison that hand target. It's so complicated, isn't it?! For the short term, when I need to go out with her, I'm just going to walk in such a way that we're always going up the stairs and never down, and then get hold of some more non-slip matting and work on that separately. Bless them, they do try us, don't they? I know for a fact that most people out there wouldn't even try to help the dog with a fear like this and would just force them to deal with it. I'm so glad I came across a forum full of like-minded people that will give me ideas and support in doing what's best for my pups, long-term.
You might be on to something there, Fiona. Sometimes the more we make a big deal out of something the more they will too. It can get a bit tricky at times but there is a place, I think, for just getting on with it all and acting like everything is perfectly normal and there's nothing to make a fuss about. Sometimes that can work...with dogs and kids!
A little update on this. I used some matting and it made no difference, so I reverted back to using a combination of matter-of-factness and heavily treating after each half-flight. She was far better in a crowd, so we did some work with DH and Shadow being there as well, and I think that was the thing that really broke the back of the problem. She's not 100% yet, and can still hesitate before going down, but she's not avoiding walking in the door anymore, nor walking so cautiously that she actually increases her chances of slipping. I like to think she looks very proud when I tell her how brave she's been, but realistically, I know it's just the happy expectation of lots of tasty treats
