Teach a Dog to Use Doggie Stairs
When your dog can no longer jump onto couches, chairs, or a bed, it’s kind of heartbreaking. After a few jumping fails (and the fornlorn look on the dog’s face gets you right in the heart), it’s time to buy a set of doggie stairs to help them out.
The problem for me was…. my dog wasn’t having it. She would NOT climb the two stairs to get on the couch.
I bought this set of 2 stairs. They have foam inserts and is zippered. The inserts can be removed and the soft cloth cover can be laundered. It comes in two types of 3-stairs and two types of 4-stairs.
The 2-stair option is called “X-Small”. As of this writing, the X-Small size is only $27.99. That is a great price! Click here to check out the stairs.
I set up the stairs and the dog wouldn’t come up the stairs, even for a treat.
So I picked her up, put her on the couch, and used treats to train her to go down the stairs.
That was the first step to getting her to use the steps! (Pun intended.)
A treat on each stair….
…and a treat on the floor as the last step in the training process to go down the stairs.
Good dog!
Now it was time to train her to go up the stairs.
A treat on the first stair where she would need to stretch far to get the treat.
A treat on the second step in the farthest corner. Once she got her back legs on the lowest stair, I knew she had made progress!
I put the treat in front of her face and then slowly pulled it back to train her to come up the last step.
Back legs on the top stair! Now it’s only one more “step” up to the couch. I still used the treat in front of her nose to “pull” her onto the couch.