Is a baby gate effective in stopping dog going upstairs?

the_devil_made_me_do_it

I'm wanting to stop my dog from going upstairs.

I have painted wooden stairs & when the dog tried galloping up, he slipped & now has a slight limp.

Also, he follows me around like a lost sheep & my only escape is when I go to bed. It would be nice to be able to go upstairs & get ready without him nearly tripping me up.

So, am thinking about getting a baby gate, however, unsure how effective it will be.

zaksmum

the_devil_made_me_do_it wrote: »

I'm wanting to stop my dog from going upstairs.

I have painted wooden stairs & when the dog tried galloping up, he slipped & now has a slight limp.

Also, he follows me around like a lost sheep & my only escape is when I go to bed. It would be nice to be able to go upstairs & get ready without him nearly tripping me up.

So, am thinking about getting a baby gate, however, unsure how effective it will be.

Depends on the kind of dog really. I got one when my dog Jack was a puppy and he managed to make himself long and skinny enough to squeeze through the gap between the bar closest to the wall and the wall itself!

Then when he was a bit older, he just leaped over it.

Jack's like that though - following me everywhere. I find it quite sweet really, that he loves me so much he takes every opportunity to be near me!

How old is your dog?

the_devil_made_me_do_it

Oh it's very sweet, however, even if I just take into account his own safety, he is actually better off not being able to go upstairs. Especially after his little slip.

He is coming up 8 years old & has lived with me for nearly 4 weeks. I adopted him from a local re-homing center.

I don't know whether he would be able to leap over it or not to be honest. I wouldn't think so though as there isn't really the space for him to get a decent run up.

Igottawii!!

My baby gate works perfectly at keeping the dogs downstairs - when my younger one was small I wove plastic cladding between the bars so she couldn't squeeze through (cos she did to start with!)
When she got bigger I simply took the cladding out and left the gate up ;-)

YORKSHIRELASS

We have a Babydan extra tall pressure gate (£41.99 from Amazon) and its fantastic. Ours is necessary to keep our Jack Russell away from the hamsters and also keep some of the dog hairs downstairs!

Just check your measurements carefully. When we wanted a gate for elsewhere we found they vary a lot in width and we needed to buy extension bars.

krlyr

I use babygates for mine. A regular height one would work with one of them, but Kiki can jump the tall gate without any run up at all, so I have to use another gate upside down on top of it. She is shorter and smaller than Casper so size isn't necessarily an indication of whether the dog will jump a gate.
They are really cheap on eBay so take a look as it may not cost you much to try out

zaksmum

krlyr wrote: »

I use babygates for mine. A regular height one would work with one of them, but Kiki can jump the tall gate without any run up at all, so I have to use another gate upside down on top of it. She is shorter and smaller than Casper so size isn't necessarily an indication of whether the dog will jump a gate.
They are really cheap on eBay so take a look as it may not cost you much to try out

Jack doesn't need a run up either. Just leaps over anything as if he's on springs:)

If you've only had your dog 4 weeks it's possible that he can't believe his luck having someone to love him at last, and needs to keep checking you're still there and not about to run out on him, poor little fella.

He may settle down when he becomes more sure of you...just keep reassuring him and hopefully you won't need the baby gate.

meritaten

my DIL used a babygate to keep thier dog downstairs. she did find that putting it across the bottom step wasnt much use, so she put in across the third step - thier dog is a bit thick and thinks the gate is much higher than it really is!

the_devil_made_me_do_it

I totally get what you are saying zaksmum & I do agree with you.

However, he hurt himself on the stairs & I want to avoid that, especially because of his age.

toniq

I have a baby gate on the front room door and patio doors, so dog stays in front room if door knocks or I go to kitchen or upstairs, unless I decide he can come too. Having the gate on front room door means I can get shopping, pram etc in/out without the dog jumping all over everything.

The patio door one is to stop him going out all the time on hot days but allows the lounge to stay cool.

rising_from_the_ashes

My neighbour has just built me a baby gate for my stairs (oh my, is it beautiful!:)).

I couldn't get a standard one to fit (stairs have a curve in) and really don't want Maisie going upstairs:

• OK when they're youngish, but awful when they get older and can't manage up/down themselves - if they've always been used to sleeping near you, what do you do then? (esp if they're too big to lift up/down
• it's also really hot up there so she'd not be comfortable anyway
• It lets the cats have some "me" space where they can escape too!

Would highly recommend it - TBH it gives me peace of mind that she's not hurtling up/down the stairs when I'm not here as she could easily fall/hurt herself