[DBlain]

One of my facebook friends lost her 1.5 year old yorkie because they feel she got hurt jumping down off the couch and not using the pet stairs. I know many on here are fans of pet stairs, personally I thought they were a good idea until I put them by the bottom of our bed. Lola would spend the night in our bed but no other time and we lifted up down, but we thought pet stairs would be a good idea, She learned to climb them quickly but never wanted to use them to go down, first she started using the top few steps, then she would leap over the last few steps, Finally she just started jumping to the floor from the bed, this of course had me worried, so within about a week the pet stairs were removed from the bed. I know some of you have pups that use the steps to come down and you are lucky, yorkies are quick little things and jumping is just faster, I also think some might be afraid, I think looking down a set of stairs is much more scary then looking up them. My feeling is if they can't get up on something safely on their own then they probably can not get off safely on their own. IMHO if you have a jumper you might want to rethink giving them access to things they can not get to on their own.

I copied( see below) this very sad post about what happened, it is so said to read, She is writing as if one of her other pups is telling the story. I don't know much about the dog's health so I can not rule out or comment to on any conditions the dog may have had. I am not saying the owner did anything wrong, pet beds are very popular and lots of dogs use them, this could have happened to me or to any of my many friends that use them. I just wanted to share my experience and that of someone I know who is extremely hurting right now. Perhaps just one of you with a jumper will question if full access to a high surface is a the right choice for their pet.


What happened to Lilly? I'm here to tell you. Lilly was a happy , healthy playful diva ... She liked to play tricks on me and eat my bows and make holes in boxes and chew the corners off cabinets ... She loved all of us but she hated mops and would bark at Bebe because she used a mop ... She loved Lollipop ! She would play and play with her all day ... She was Blondie's shadow and learned to climb stairs so she could be with Ucho ... But most of all she loved the mustached one ... Ohhh how she loved him! He would give her cookies and chips ( just a taste and hidden from Blondie) and he would watch TV with her and let her sleep on his pillow ... Everyday when he gets home we would all run to the door as we heard the engine approaching ... We would bark and run until he got to the door and we would run around him ... Monday was no different except that we had been on the sofa on Blondie's lap and Lilly was playing with her red ball while she was getting combed ... When we heard the engine we all jumped off ( we have steps but who really needs those?) and ran to the door ... Blondie put Lilly down and walked to the kitchen to take her empty cup of tea and that's when it happened only none of us were there ... The ball was on the sofa .
When Blondie went to the door she said where's Lily? We all looked and Mustached one found her . Blondie felt her and she had a pulse so they tried to revive her even Ucho but I will tell you what happened ... She ran back to get her ball jumped on the sofa and jumped off ( she had never been able to jump on) she jumped and when she landed she saw an older gentleman with many Yorkies , a skinny little chihuahua a beautiful cat and a bigger brown mutt and many birds, hamsters and even two rats . She felt Blondie hold her and ask her to come back
but she couldn't move her legs there and here she could jump so she ran towards the group and she saw a rainbow bridge . The man said he was Blondie's daddy and there were more grandparents coming so she looked one time at mommy and her heart stopped as she played with the others . Because she loved us she had her eyes open and clear and shiny all night . We all slept around her until we took her to Dr. Lee and her eyes were still shiny . She was wrapped in her favorite blankets and wore her favorite color dress that she was going to wear for tea ... And we all licked her goodbye. We miss her terribly and we won't be upset if she crosses with the grandparents because we will see them all again ... In the meantime she lives on in Lollipop Kate and in cupcakes and every time I see a red ball I'll remember her . We thank everyone who cares . Lily was easy to love . I should have added no jumping to the Cupcake rules ... But as in the song I question ... How do you hold a wave upon the sand ? Lilly had spunk. We won't be on much except to sometimes say hi ! We need time to heal and we are okay .
Love you and say a little prayer
Lulu