At what age should a lab puppy be able to go up and down a flight of stairs? I had read that it's bad for their hips to do stairs at a young age, so we were keeping our puppy away from them. Now she is 5 months old and getting heavier for me to carry up and down full flights of stairs, but she seems very afraid of the stairs and won't even attempt to go up or down them, even if it's just a few. Will she just eventually learn, or do we somehow teach her?
I stopped once I could no longer safely carry my dog up and down. I taught him to take stairs carefully by treating for going slowly on the stairs. You could try luring her until she gets the hang of it, she should learn very quickly
We carried Bailey only until he was too heavy for us to do safely - we then put a lead on him and took it a step at a time with treats to encourage him to go slowly. He got the hand of going up stairs a lot easier than coming down. He was very unsure about coming downstairs - it took one of us walking beside him and the other in front (going down the stairs backwards on hands and knees) putting treats every so often on the steps. Mind you we live in a town terrace house (the original two up two down type for those in the UK) and our stairs are very steep. Even now Bailey still comes down the stairs slowly, which I am grateful for!
Contrary to most of the advise on this forum, both of our Lab pups went up and down stairs as soon as they could manage. Initially I carried them up and down just to make sure we would make it to the yard in time. I don't recall exactly when they started negotiating the indoor stairs on their own, but I would think about 12 weeks. (Cooper was 20 lbs. at 12 weeks) The outdoor stairs are only about 3 steps and lower rise, so they did them earlier. I remember that both bunny hopped stairs initially. Both dogs have good hips. Our indoor stairs at home have a carpet runner, and the stairs at the cabin are fully carpeted. It makes them a lot easier and less scary for a pup, or an older dog. Starting a pup out on low rise stairs may make them less afraid of them. Rough stairs are better than slippery, and open back stairs are scary for many dogs, even dogs that are used to stairs. We used to have another couple in our cabin that had a really nice mix (Golden/Border Collie maybe) who would go up the stairs in about 3 bounds. Going down he may have only hit the stairs once between the top and bottom.
Thank you all for your responses. Our 2 sets of stairs in the house are both hardwood. When she was younger, she would jump up a few stairs (as many as about 5) but then couldn't get herself back down without sliding down them. We also have stairs on our deck that lead to the yard.
Bella took AGES for her to start coming up and down the stairs , she point blankly refused to even attempt to go up them and so we let her decide to do it in her own time .Once she learned however that there was a whole new world of interesting things upstairs she soon decided to go up ....coming down however was a whole new ball game and for a long time she would "slide" down stairs on her belly with what seemed like a great big smile on her face lol. Dont however be in too much of a rush to encourage your pup to start using the stairs .....I say this because I soooo miss the days where I could get a little peace from Bella as she sticks to me like glue when I am in the house ...I can't even go to the loo now without her nose appearing round the door!
If your stairs are wood, I'd consider covering them with a non-slip mat, especially while your puppy is learning. Slipping on stairs is very dangerous to joints, not to mention that it could easily scare her and make her want to avoid them completely.
