We have a four-month-old fox red labrador retriever we’ve had for about a month. He is a very well-behaved puppy but he is scared to death of the basement steps which are on the outside of the house. We live in northern Alabama which is basically tornado alley and one of our concerns is being able to easily get him to the basement if God forbid we have a tornado coming at the house. If anybody has any tips on how to get him used to going up and down the basement steps I would really appreciate it thank you.
I would just take him to the top and give tasty treats then wait a while ‘till he relaxes (read you phone and relax yourself) then praise and move away. Do this for a week or two then see if you can treat on the first step, then treat and move away again. Repeat lots. Don’t rush it.
We did the same as what Boogie said. Ours was though inside plus our main living roon is upstairs. We did however carry her up and down the stairs until about 6+months. By the time we needed her to start walking (about 4/5 months) we started from the bottom and worked our way up a few steps, treating each one. Then picked her up and carried her the rest. This took us a few days to do all steps about 15 or so from memory. Then started to do the return down a few steps at a time. I think all up took us about 2weeks, but we did do this only for a few minutes every few days, rather than push to get it done quickly. We do have a cue 'gentle' which meant no running up or down the stairs. Hopefully some ideas
FYI.... my breeder said no steps until he is a year old because of hips. I told him that he sleep with his pack(us) up stairs. She said that he could go up and down gently once a day. At 17 weeks, I still carry him up, and help him down so there will be no jumping. He escapes once or twice a week when we forget to put up the baby barrier, since he knows the cat food is up stairs.
As others have said @Daniel Heyboer take it very slowly, literally one step at a time with plenty of yummy treats to create a happy connection. Just wondering whether it's something to do with how the steps are constructed or what they are constructed from. Are the steps open tread, wood, metal, concrete.......
There is no way I would restrict a dog from stairs for a year. Imagine trying to carry an 80# lab up and down a flight of stairs. Their hips are stronger than my back. Open back, or slippery stairs bother some dogs a lot. One of our friends Sammys fell on their stairs and would not go up them for almost a year. He wasn't hurt, just scared. Another friend had a Golden R./Border Collie X that went up and down our stairs so fast he only hit one or two steps on the way down and probably only 4 on the way up.
I cringe now, when I think of when I was a youngster and we used to throw a ball up and down the stairs for our lovely mongrel puppy Joe, he would fly up & down after it Teaching a young dog to take stairs in a slow, controlled manner is important.
