I happened to find a set of pet stairs at a Giant Tiger store (which is a local discount store). I have seen them in PetSmart too. The ones I bought are basically a hard plastic frame with a faux lambskin cover. They were $20 and work just fine. I got them when Spike was six months old. It took him a while to figure out exactly what they were for, but now he uses them all the time.
I got them because he would drive me nuts sitting by the couch and whining to come up. Now, he can come and sit with me whenever he likes without bugging me! Also, rather than having him jumping down, he uses the stairs, which cuts down on the amount of impacts his hips and legs take in an average day. He's never fallen down the stairs, and I would say they are about three to four inches heigh.
No matter what you choose to do, make sure the ramp or stairs are reasonably wide, not just a wood plank, for example. Spike tears up those stairs and if they were too narrow, he'd probably take quite a few falls, even though he's tiny! We took an aagility class where the dogs had to walk up a ramp, across a beam, and down the ramp on the other side. One day, one of the dogs took a fall while going up the ramp. She wasn't hurt, but her owner couldn't get her to use the ramp after that because the fall scared her. |