Stairs

Pepper

Pepper

Location
Yorkshire
So Pepper has been with us now for three and a half months. In that time he’s never been upstairs in the house, and has always waited patiently at the bottom of the stairs if one of us is upstairs.

That was until today when he ventured half way up the stairs and then found himself stuck there, not sure whether to carry on up and not certain how to get down. A quick bark and we rescued him.

Now what have others done, is a stair gate the right option or have you trained your doggies not to go upstairs?
 
Xena Dog Princess

Xena Dog Princess

Location
Wellington, NZ
@Rosie has trained Pongo to not go upstairs, and I'm pretty sure they don't have a barrier. My sister in law's dog won't step foot in their house (he's an outside dog, it's sad) but I've got no idea how they trained that. I'm 100% sure it wasn't positive, though. If you've got the patience you could definitely boundary train him to stay off the stairs. If you don't have the patience then barriers are amazing :D
 
Boogie

Boogie

Moderator
Location
Manchester UK
We have a stair gate :)

Our pups need to be able to confidently navigate all kinds of stairs so we can’t teach them not to go up them, but they aren’t allowed upstairs.
 
Anne123

Anne123

Location
Vlaardingen, the Netherlands
We never used stair gates. We taught them not to climb the stairs. They always waited for us at the bottom of the stairs. Our first lab climbed stairs when we said it was alright to come upstairs. Euan didn’t want to even he was allowed. That resulted in that when we were a weekend away in Germany he twisted his back on the stairs he had to climb to go to our hotel room. He developed a herniated disk, got mri and had to have an operation. He never became his old self again and 1,5 years after his operation we had to let him go.....
Finn doesn’t want to come up or down the stairs, even if we say it is alright. In our house in the woods we have downstairs bedrooms where it is cool! In this heat we wanted Finn downstairs so he could sleep better. We couldn’t get him to come down with us. So we bought him a cooling blanket.
 
Atemas

Atemas

UK Tour Guide
Location
North Cambridgeshire
Neither of our dogs go upstairs - we don’t use any barrier. We allow them to sit on the 3rd, 4th step as there is a little window to the front - they like to watch any comings and goings!! Both dogs on occasion climb a bit higher but _they can then see DH working in his study so they are allowed to do that. Neither have tried to go onto the landing. Red had learnt if she is lying on a stair, to move across to allow us to pass. Sky rarely goes on the stairs now because of her arthritis but she always used to go and sit there when DH was coming home - long before his car could be in hearing - weird.

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Shaz82

Shaz82

Location
Essex, U.K.
When Maisy was too small to go upstairs we put a barrier up (one of the sides of a pen), just to stop her hurting herself. After that we put up a baby gate, just to keep her out of the way really and to keep her and the house safe when she was going through the chewy phase.
 
Charlie

Charlie

Location
Argyll & Bute, Scotland
We haven't had a stair gate since Hattie was a puppy. Hattie is allowed upstairs but will only go up if she has been cued to do so. Charlie is pretty good most of the time but he will sneak up very quietly thinking we don't see him, he doesn't know just how big he is!! :rolleyes::LOL: I just cue "stay" if I am going upstairs and don't want them to follow me. x
 
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