Puppy wont go down stairs!!

Kimberley

suki1964 wrote: »

Dreadful dangerous advice to be giving for a young 4 month old pup.Pups should not be doing stairs freely until at least a year old when their bone and muscle structure has fully developed. Insisting on making a pup do the stairs especially coming down is placing them at risk of hip dysplasia at the worst and rheumatism/arthritis at an early age

There are thousands upon thousands of dogs in the world, you give me facts and the amount of dogs who have suffered these conditions by going up and down stairs as pups then please, i'm facinated to know. I've grown up with dogs, all have gone up and down stairs at this age, none have had any health risks by doing this. Dogs can have accidents from playing, jumping on chairs etc.

Give me the facts and numbers of dogs who have had Hip Dysplasia etc from climbing stairs and i'll apologise and say I was wrong

suki1964

Kimberley wrote: »

There are thousands upon thousands of dogs in the world, you give me facts and the amount of dogs who have suffered these conditions by going up and down stairs as pups then please, i'm facinated to know. I've grown up with dogs, all have gone up and down stairs at this age, none have had any health risks by doing this. Dogs can have accidents from playing, jumping on chairs etc.

Give me the facts and numbers of dogs who have had Hip Dysplasia etc from climbing stairs and i'll apologise and say I was wrong

Now thats just pure childish as you know it is.

pepsi1959

Thankyou all for your comments, I hadnt realized it was bad for the hips to be using the stairs, made me feel like a bad pet owner, so will give the stair gate some thought, I knew lhaso apso`s couldnt jump very well, but nothing been said about using the stairs! thanks once again

Kerriebaby

I have to say I am with Suki on this, no dog regardless of breed should be doing huge stair cases at that age. Not only for health, but a fall could be very dangerous ( as with any dog, but more so with a delicate toy breed )

Some dogs just cant do stairs, my three ( large breeds ) can and do when supervised, but I have a stair gate at the top and bottom so they cannot go alone

Kerriebaby

pepsi1959 wrote: »

Thankyou all for your comments, I hadnt realized it was bad for the hips to be using the stairs, made me feel like a bad pet owner, so will give the stair gate some thought, I knew lhaso apso`s couldnt jump very well, but nothing been said about using the stairs! thanks once again

are you a member of freecycle? I got my two from there, almost brand new!

Milford_Cubicle

I wish there had been stairgates on freecycle when I was looking - ended up having to get mine new!

I have four stairs which cannot be gated, then the gate is on stair number 5 which means my puppy can, if she wishes, go up and down four stairs. She doesn't do this regularly and I do try to discourage it as much as possible, her being a black Lab and all. She often lays on stair number 2 and chews her toys, it's a bit cooler in the hall. I don't think there's a huge amount of harm letting a pup practice a few stairs now and again, but danger certainly does lie in having them do the full flight of stairs daily, or several times per day.
Dogs legs aren't made for our stairs and they find it awkward, plus it's not a natural movement for them to undertake. It'd be far too easy for them to tumble down the stairs and do themselves serious damage. Heck, I know how much it hurts for a human to tumble from top to bottom, let alone a young puppy!

We've had her almost five weeks now and she's done the entire flight of stairs twice. Once because I accidentally left the stairgate open and I've never seen her move so quickly (!) and the second time because she was going to have a bath so I let her climb the stairs. I also let her go back down again, but under strict supervision of my partner who remained in front of her so she couldn't go too quickly and he could stop her if she slipped.

I'd really be using lots of caution with even a dog and stairs. I echo what others have said, if the pup is small enough to be carried, then carry it. A stairgate at the top will prevent accidents while you're upstairs and one at the bottom will prevent it going up unsupervised. It is like having a child!

oystercatcher

My puppies soon learned to go upstairs , cause havoc, chew everything left on the floor in the childrens rooms (most of their possessions!) leave a few puddles or worse! Then they would sit whine to be carried down.
I soon got a stair gate.
Beryl the Peril soon learned that when I was carrying the Big Yellow Laundry Basket I couldn't shut the gate quickly so she would nip upstairs just because it was forbidden !!
Dennis the Menace was terrified of the Big Yellow Basket so kept well out of the way!
After a few more months they soon learned to come down on their own.
In fact now I have got rid of the stairgate and we try and keep the bedroom doors shut. Beryl knows she can often get doors open though !! Dennis just waits behind and then they can spend the day sleeping on someones bed !!
I come home and find Beryl guiltily sneaking down the stairs pretending it wasn't her!!

OP I wouldn't worry your puppy will learn when he's ready but a stairgate can prevent lots of problems.

Oystercatcher

Kimberley

suki1964 wrote: »

Now thats just pure childish as you know it is.

I was asking a question, it is not a childish question, i'm 40 years old, not a child so if you have facts then please let me see them

You said my advice was dreadful and dangerous and i'm asking you to back that up with facts and I don't mean anything you pick up from Google because there are a lot of misleading advice on the Internet.

I will apologise when you prove me wrong because I don't want to say anything that would put a dog at risk.

moomin5

I never realised stairs were bad for dogs, although can see how it could put strain on a pup or a small dog.

I had to train my greyhounds to climb the stairs when i got them, going up didn't take long to teach but going downstairs is harder. I think downstairs is scarier because most of the weight is going through the front end and tipping them forwards to a big drop. I helped steady them going downstairs until they were confident and now both have no issues. Throp like to run up the stairs and does it in about 3 strides which is scary to watch, thankfully he goes down them in a more sensible fashion.

Kimberley

moomin5 wrote: »

I never realised stairs were bad for dogs, although can see how it could put strain on a pup or a small dog.

Anything in the house could be dangerous to a dog, jumping on a chair can. I will say I'm wrong if I were given proof, but someone can't tell me that what I said was a dangerous and dreadful advice when they haven't shown me any evidence of this. Animals in the wild young and old go up steps or high places with no trouble.

It's getting a bit OTT with all this you can't do this or you can't do that or if your kid falls over you must put a plaster on a graze etc

Dogs and pups have been for years going up and downstairs sleeping in bedrooms etc. There are risks in everything you do these days.