• one thing our girl has never done is go up or down any of the stairs in the house, she'll look from the top of the cellar stairs but never attempt to go down them, even though the lab has no problem id figured she would follow her, same for going up the stairs to the 2nd floor she'll put her feet on the 2nd stair but thats it, we never force her to go up/down them or trap her on the stairs to make her decide what to do,we want her to do it naturally, even when sliky and her are romping around and the lab goes up the stairs she'll stop right at the bottom, maybe in her back round one of her ancestors fell down the pyramid stairs and was passed on to her:)


  • How old is she?


  • Rufus didn't used to do stairs, he races up and down them now!


  • Are the stairs the kind that are open and you can see thru the front and back of each step? My oldest girl never would go do our cellar stairs either because they are the open type of step. However, once she saw her grand daughter do it, that was it - she was not to be out done. 🙂


  • We live in a rancher (no stairs), but Kipawa was apprehensive the first few times he did stairs. At 13 months, he has no problem with them now. Interesting comment about the 'open' stairs. My best friend used to live above a store, and the stairs to her place were 'open'. I hated them. I never felt safe on them. I always felt like I was going to fall through them (no chance of that!).


  • Anubis doesnt like stairs either…I brought him to my friends townhome which has stairs and he was terrified to go down... he'd go UP fine but when it came time to go back down he'd get terrified and his hair would go up and he'd grumble. So I'd carry him down.


  • My Maggii did fine on closed stairs, but ones with open space between the treads, she never liked. And we have both types in our house. She never in her 16+ years got used to those stairs. She would go up and down, but always thought about it first. Closed stairs were never an issue.


  • I miss when Basil was afraid to go down the basement stairs as downstairs is the cat's territory and is where her food is… when Basil was about 4 months old he followed the cat down there and found the cat food... he's been sneaking down there when we accidentally leave the basement door open since... be thankful because I'm guessing they'll grow out of it!


  • Treats! That is what FINALLY got our girl to do stairs


  • Food usually does the trick. I know mine are wary about open stairs too.

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