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Adopted and Rescued Shelties » Group Forum

Afraid of Stairs

  
Gracie

I'm not shy, I'm- reclusive,- dahling.		 
 
Barked: Wed Oct 31, '07 7:15am PST 
Gracie (who is a puppy mill rescue and kept in a cage the first 6 years of her life) will run upstairs, but won't initiate coming down. Her safe zone has always been the bedroom, but now after being with us for three years, she does enjoy being downstairs where the action is. She will stand at the top of the stairs wanting to come down, but waits until someone comes to get her. If you place her withing two feet of the top of the stairs, she will come down. But if you place her any further back than that, she'll turn and run back into the bedroom.

Any suggestions on how to get her over that initial hump? I've tried putting treats on the stairs, but it hasn't worked yet.

Thanks.
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Beamer- (forever- loved)

Sir Bark-a-lot		 
 
Barked: Sun Nov 4, '07 12:12pm PST 
My Buttons hated stairs even as a pup. On our own, we never could get her to come down stairs so we put up a gate so we wouldn't have to keep carrying her down. She wouldn't even come down the one step into the sunken livingroom. The only thing that got her to start coming down was when we got Bows. She was more of a wild thing and flew up and down the stairs with no problem. Soon Buttons followed her example and would finally come down on her own.

She never liked coming down and would bark at the top of the stairs from time to time for us to carry her. Only after she realized we weren't going to would she then come down.
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Callie CGC- RN (Rainbow- Bridge)

My Lil Pony
 
 
Barked: Sat Nov 10, '07 7:41pm PST 
Callie is from a breed rescue group so I don't know much about her history. She would go down stairs but not up them. She'll jump out of the car but not up into it. She is better with the stairs now- I just had to keep taking her up them- she would want to come with me so up she'd go. My problem was that we don't encounter them all the time- one level house and most of the places that we go don't have stairs either. Granpa's house does have stairs and it'll be interesting to see what she does at the holidays- she was carried both ways last year.
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