My sister, Sadie is having an issue with going up the stairs from our living room to our bedroom. Normally, she runs up and down the stairs, but lately she will only run down. Wen checked her for anything wrong, such as back pain, but there was nothing. She tried luring Sadie up the steps by offering her treats from upstairs, but that didn’t work. Sadie would crawl up a couple steps and then run back down, so Wen placed a treat on every step and Sadie made it up to the landing, only to to turn around and run back down. There was no way that she was going all the way upstairs, even with Wen coaxing her and waving treats.
It’s unusual for a dog to refuse to go up the stairs. Puppies learn to go up first and then as they get more brave, they decide to try to go down a few steps at a time until they can eventually maneuver their way all the way down. Sadie is just the opposite in that all of a sudden, she is afraid to go up. Wen thought that maybe she had tripped going up the stairs and she had tumbled down, because of her new fear, but since there’s no way to ask her what happened or what is causing Sadie’s new aversion to the stairs, it’s a mystery. She has no problem with the deck stairs, but maybe since the wood is a rougher texture on them than the hardwood stairs, she gets better traction outside. Whatever the reason, Wen hopes that Sadie will make it up the stairs soon, because she has been carrying her up for the last few days and even worse, when Molly and I go upstairs with Wen, Sadie will wail and carry on loudly downstairs until Wen goes and gets her. The sooner the mystery is solved, the better for all of us!
Sadie
