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My 1 1/2yr old male is afraid to go up stairs

1K views 10 replies 8 participants last post by  doggiedad 
#1 ·
We are not sure what is scaring our boy! His kennel is in the basement, and has been since we got him at 7 weeks. He has never had a problem with the basement or house stairs. Over the past 2 weeks he will get scared to come up the basement stairs. It's not every time just when he is not as excited and seems to pay more attention to them. We have tried everything to get him to come up.. The only thing that works is if he thinks someone has come to the house and then he becomes my gsd protector. It breaks my heart because he stands at the bottom of the stairs and cries.. Any thoughts?


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#4 ·
Thank you.. If you find anything please let me know.. We have been using treats and a lot of praise. He LOVES to play ball so we tried tempting him with that, and nothing...one of the games he loves to play when it's not nice outside is play catch on the house stairs.. It's just the basement stairs that scares him... Very weird... I wish they could talk! Haha!


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#7 · (Edited)
I was just going to type this. It helped my ginger by doing that because she used to trip on the steps all the time. I read somewhere where dogs sometimes have a judgment problem when the can see through the back sides of the stairs. So I filled the gaps in; in the backs of the steps, and she was more comfortable and did not trip going up "or down" the steps anymore.
 
#8 ·
Every dog I've owned was afraid of "open" stairs, none as much as the GSD though. We had to carry him down my daughters stairs when we were visiting, he was terrified. He will go up, though tentative. Would not go down. I thought maybe because they're so "front heavy",and have less control going down.
 
#11 ·
how much training on open steps did you do?

>>>> Every dog I've owned was afraid of "open" stairs, none as much as the GSD though.<<<<

We had to carry him down my daughters stairs when we were visiting, he was terrified. He will go up, though tentative. Would not go down. I thought maybe because they're so "front heavy",and have less control going down.
 
#9 ·
A friend of mine (VERY wealthy) has a set of stairs in his vacation home that are "floating". The main spar that holds the steps is structural plexi, so it's near invisible. His dogs won't go near it, you have to take the elevator down/up to the pool room with the dogs. Sort of works out as the pool has no shallow side steps, just a ladder.
 
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