Stair warning
 

I wanted to remind all the members with new pups that stairs can be dangerous for the little ones and they probably should be kept away from them until they are older and maybe bigger. Callie went to the vet today and an emergency appointment came in and it was a lady who's 4 month old yorkie fell going down the stairs and fractured her paw. Felt so sorry for the poor puppy. Callie would not mess with the stairs until she got older and even then she would go up and then cry until someone carried her down and we had to teach her to go down them.

Thanks Taylor good point. These wee ones are so fragile...but they don't know it!

We have to be careful with all of them. Ally, who will be 4 years on New Years Eve, has fallen down the stairs once (lost her footing) and off the couch once (bumped by sister). On both occassions, she went into shock. It was sooooooo terrifying!

You are so righhhttttt...just last night Miss Mini fell off the arm of the sofa, hard klunk to the floor, omg scared me to death...she has bum legs and a bum hip from Leggs Perthes surgery...a million things went through my head and she walked away like it was no ones business...I was shocked. Shes not feeling good yesterday or today so I am taking her in for a checkup tonight...nothing to do with the fall...alot of nausea...but I will mention it to the doc.:(

That does sound really scary.

I hope she starts feeling better poor little Miss Mini.

Thatnk you for posting this warning, my sister has sammys brother when he was 10 weeks old he fell down the stairs and was thankfully wasnt hurt i dread to think of what injuries he could have got, sam is not allowed to climb the stairs at all and wont be able to till he grown

This is definitely something to worry about! We have steep wood stairs and I was always worried about the pups sliding down them... So we had carpet installed to give both the people and doggies better footing while going up/down.

stairs are so scary, especially if they are hardwood. My last yorkie was about 4 lbs and we tried to keep him from the stairs but on occassion the gate would be left down, one fall was so bad I could not believe he lived through it. My friend came over and opened the front door, Kirby shot out of my bedroom in full attack mode, he lost his footing half way down and tumbled the rest of the way, I stood at the top and my friend at the bottom just motionless because we could not do anything to catch him. Another thing to be careful of is them running up along with you, Lola has gotten under my feet several times, now it's like instinct to watch for her when I climb my stairs which since my bedroom and office is up there and I work from home, I do about a zillion times a day. There was a YT member that mentioned that her young yorkie died as a result of getting mixed up between the feet of her son on the stairs. When Lola was a puppy I kept a gate across mine, now she seems to have a good grasp on them and carries her toys up and down like a pro, but I am still really scared about them. We put lattice over the balusters on our upper level balcony because Lola would stick her head and part of her body through them, then she started pushing toys through the spindles so she could watch them hit the foyer floor, which is a 15' drop. Here is a picture of my little Kirby looking through the balusters, it gives me shivers to look at it now.

I have a door at the top of the stairway leading from my kitchen down to the family room/basement. Lucy is kept in the kitchen. One time, after I returned up the stairs, I began to shut the door not noticing that Lucy was underfoot. She would have been swept down the staircase if I had not seen her last minute and closed the door all the way. I guess with these little guys we always have to look down at are feet before any sudden movements!

Good reminder:)
Joel almost fell down once but we rebuilt our stairs for that exact reason, the steps go way back so if a kid (or Joel) ever fell on the stairs they would only fall on one step maybe two and not go all the way down

Thanks Taylor, great reminder. When we first got Hot Rod, we didn't even think about gating off any parts of the house and all of a sudden while I was in the other room I heard a thud and then a yelp. I ran out to the stair case only to see him getting up and running away. I could only think that he tried to climb the stairs and fell. Til this day, (he is 5 now) he's so scared to go up and down the stairs. I carry him up and I walk backwards down while he climbs down. Our stairs are very steep and the treads are narrow.

Maggie May has no fear of stairs and just runs up and down them. The other night while I was carrying Hot Rod down, she lost her footing and while she didn't fall (Thank God!) she did fall down 2 steps at a time managing to go down them on her feet. She did this from the middle of the stairs to the bottom. She never did fall but everytime she tried to catch herself, she would miss run out of tread to stand on and down she went. I couldn't do anything but watch because I had Hot Rod in one arm and I was holding the banister with my other and she was going down very quickly. She hesitates now but will go down behind me.

Hubby wants me to look into getting the stairs carpeted with stair threads. We have hardwood stairs so they are slippery.

I had a wooden baby gate at the bottom of my stairs for awhile that we either walked over or moved out of the way. I even put cables ties on it for awhile. When hubby fell up the stairs one night, I broke down and got one of the metal gates with a walk thru door. It is so much nicer to be able to walk thru rather than over.

At this point Lola is so good at climbing up and down the stairs I am not worried any longer when she is on her own. It's only when she is following me so close that I worry now. I try hard to pick her up when I am going up, but you know these guys are so quick, one moment she might be in her bed and I could be halfway up the steps and all of a sudden she is running up like a light beating me to the top.

I have slipped down them more times than Lola, one time I came close to landing on her in the foyer. I have learned when in stocking feet to walk very slowly down the steps.

That's too bad. I trained my puppies to go up and down my full flight staircase. They mastered it and have no fear of stairs at all. I don't allow access to stairs when I'm not around given that one of my dogs has a seizure disorder and he needs to be kept safe. But, otherwise, I don't see a problem with stairs if there is proper training. Mine know the commands "upstairs" and "kitchen" which means go down stairs and go to the kitchen. No one goes up and down without a command.