Stairs

Freja will go up the stairs to our second floor with no problem, but she will not come down the stairs. She goes down the outside back steps just fine now, but there are only a few steps. Last night I spent about 45 minutes working with Freja on coming down steps.

First I coaxed her to come up 5 steps, enticing her with a Wellness Puppy Treat. Once she was on step 5 I gave her the treat and then showed her a second one and went down to the bottom of the stairs. She came down.

So, I went up a few more stairs and enticed her up, but instead of stopping where I was she kept going all the to the top. Here are some photos of the next steps:


The treat looks enticing...


Maybe I can stretch my nose out far enough to get the treat without touching the stairs....

Alas... that doesn't work.

Just around this time Halle, the beagle, returned from her walk with my husband. Halle also had a hard time with stairs when she first came to live here even though she was 5-8 years old. I worked with Halle on walking the stairs and now she runs up and down the stairs often. Halle was very excited by the prospect of any activity that involved treats, so she ran up the stairs to join us. I proceeded to go down the stairs and Halle followed, then up the stairs, Halle followed... Freja observed all of this activity. The third time Halle and I went up and down Freja followed! I told her she was a VERY good girl.

The bad news is this morning she refused to come down the stairs again. I envision carrying an 80lb Shiloh Shepherd down the stairs every day... LOL