Thoughts about pet stairs

[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

[yorkietalkjilly]

Who knows? Isn't that awful? Maybe she had a stroke, an aneurysm, heart attack or the shock of the landing somehow spontaneously dissected an already fragile and weakened vertebral artery at the neck, displaced an occult cervical ataxia or something weird like that. Tibbe liked to cheat by jumping halfway down from the stairs until he had to endure my nagging butt-chewing, fingerpointing right in his face, eye-brow-knitted, wrathful rant from me for about 60 or more long seconds and a whole lot of re-training right after the rant. He was happy to go all the way down - anything to get me happy with him again and avoid the ranting mommie. He soon got the message but every once in a while, he still bails off the couch though he hasn't done it in probably over a year now, come to think of it! It's just muscle memory with him now - he automatically goes down his steps or ramp - we've both in the house. Poor baby, at least she went without a lot of bad suffering.

[MissSunni]

Omg..that made me cry. How sad. I did get a set of stairs for Sunni, but she did exactly what you said. No trouble going up but would go down one and jump off to the side. I finally thought of bringing up my kitchen step stool..2 rubber coated steps and very stable. (The pet stairs I got didn't really feel that stable to me). I spent an hour with treats teaching her to go up and come down the steps. This week she's been working on the long flight of stairs to go up to my (our) room. She was not coming down by herself, but today she did it on her own for the first time. I have worked with her on the stairs because I know how wily she is, and I felt like it would be better to teach her the right way, then have her trying to take a few steps at a time.


I feel so bad for your friend, but the way she wrote about it was very touching.

[DBlain]

Jeanie I wonder all the same things, I don't know her history well or her weight,

how big is Sunni, my last yorkie was border line to small to climb up or down a staircase especially since ours are bare wood.

I know that it is common to have yorkies on furniture even if someone is not sitting with them and that has always baffled me. I have friends that come over with their pups and even though no one is sitting on my couch most of the dogs head for it and several walk across the top of it and my couch sits in the middle of the great room, so it's not even to look out a window. None of my past yorkies or Lola gets on a couch unless my husband or I am sitting on it and none ever got on the bed unless I put them on it at bedtime. Even if Lola was to small to get on the couch on her own, it would only take a second to lift her up, so for me pet stairs would not be necessary. My pups always have their own bed in every room I spend time in so perhaps they don't feel the need to get on the couch. I am in my home office now where there is day bed, Lola is laying next to it in her bed on the floor, which is good because I have work papers scattered all over the bed. Everyone's situation is different so I am curious if many of you have pups sleeping on your bed or couches when no human's are in them.

[dinkster]

Dinky had LP and ligament surgery just about 5 weeks ago. The surgeon said that because he operates on so many injured dogs, that he does not allow his dogs on the furniture. I feel as if I can't quite turn back the clock with Dinky bc he is 5 years old now. Still, the plan is to train him to use stairs to go up and down from sofa. I thin we can train him; he is pretty cooperative.
I think though that his days of being on a sofa without one of us around are over. All he has to do is get excited about something he sees or hears, and just once, he could forget to use the stairs.

[MissSunni]

DBlain,

Sunni is 5 mos and 10 lbs, and pretty tall. She's actually about the exact same size as my little Shih Tzu, George who I lost in January. He thought he was a cat and did exactly what you described..loved getting on the back of the sofa in the middle of the great room..no window. He would even do that at the vet. His legs were actually shorter then Sunni's are. The doors to the rooms upstairs are all closed if I'm not home, and she literally just mastered going down the stairs today. I sort of have the opinion with her that if I can't beat her at her game, then I have to teach her mine, lol. She does love to jump up and down on the sofa downstairs...so I have short soft ottoman for her to step on to get up and off the sofa. She uses it for that and will get on it to nap.

[DBlain]

Originally Posted by dinkster

Dinky had LP and ligament surgery just about 5 weeks ago. The surgeon said that because he operates on so many injured dogs, that he does not allow his dogs on the furniture. I feel as if I can't quite turn back the clock with Dinky bc he is 5 years old now. Still, the plan is to train him to use stairs to go up and down from sofa. I thin we can train him; he is pretty cooperative.
I think though that his days of being on a sofa without one of us around are over. All he has to do is get excited about something he sees or hears, and just once, he could forget to use the stairs.

I had a friend that broke their dog of getting on the couch by putting things like stools and boxes on the sofa when they were not sitting on it. you might try something like that or if you have loose cushions get in the habit of standing them up sort of at an angle. make sure you keep a real comfortable bed right below the sofa he might choose that place to lay when you are not around if he can not get on the couch. I don't know if you have a cloud nine bed but if not you might get one of those, everyone that has them swear that their pups love how comfortable they are.

Lola is funny with her beds, even when sleeping on our bed she does it in one of her small beds. When we travel we always take several beds and you can see relief in here eyes when she see's it come out, it's like she is thinking whew now I know where I am supposed to chill out. I really think if you want your dogs off the furniture you must have several very comfortable beds for them, on or two is not enough

[JadeD]

How sad. I love the way she wrote it though, very moving.

Teek is always on the furniture. He loves to be on the couch and he really enjoys being on the back of the couch, but there is a wall behind the couch so I don't worry about his falling off onto the floor, if he fell he would land on a very padded couch. As far as the couch he can get up and down off it on his own.

He is always lifted on/off our bed. He is only allowed in our room at night to go to sleep (or if I have a migraine he is there during the day with me). Our bed is very high and I do not let him try to jump on or off it. If he gets near the edge I tell him to wait and I will get him off it and so far he has listened to me. One day he went in our bedroom and I stopped at the kids rooms to say night to them. I saw him in our room jumping straight up to see if Daddy was on the bed to lift him and the bed was empty so he waited for me to get there. It was so cute.

I couldn't imagine the heartbreak of losing a dog like that though. So sad, but it was a freak accident.

[DBlain]

Originally Posted by MissSunni

DBlain,

Sunni is 5 mos and 10 lbs, and pretty tall. She's actually about the exact same size as my little Shih Tzu, George who I lost in January. He thought he was a cat and did exactly what you described..loved getting on the back of the sofa in the middle of the great room..no window. He would even do that at the vet. His legs were actually shorter then Sunni's are. The doors to the rooms upstairs are all closed if I'm not home, and she literally just mastered going down the stairs today. I sort of have the opinion with her that if I can't beat her at her game, then I have to teach her mine, lol. She does love to jump up and down on the sofa downstairs...so I have short soft ottoman for her to step on to get up and off the sofa. She uses it for that and will get on it to nap.

Wow she has really grown, I am surprised that she has trouble getting on the couch or using the stairs, for her the stairs must be more of a fright thing, are your stairs wood? Also she might not know how to properly jump, it took Lola a while to learn how to jump on something, she would jump up straight like a pogo stick, usually higher than what she wanted to land on, but not jump on to it, just straight up in the air past it, my last yorkie jumped the same way but he was smaller, so finally he just started waiting for us to pick him up. Not that I am trying to encourage jumping it's just some dogs don't get how to land on something, it's really sort of funny

[DBlain]

[QUOTE=JadeD;4552948]How sad. I love the way she wrote it though, very moving.

Teek is always on the furniture. He loves to be on the couch and he really enjoys being on the back of the couch, but there is a wall behind the couch so I don't worry about his falling off onto the floor, if he fell he would land on a very padded couch. As far as the couch he can get up and down off it on his own.

He is always lifted on/off our bed. He is only allowed in our room at night to go to sleep (or if I have a migraine he is there during the day with me). Our bed is very high and I do not let him try to jump on or off it. If he gets near the edge I tell him to wait and I will get him off it and so far he has listened to me. One day he went in our bedroom and I stopped at the kids rooms to say night to them. I saw him in our room jumping straight up to see if Daddy was on the bed to lift him and the bed was empty so he waited for me to get there. It was so cute.

I couldn't imagine the heartbreak of losing a dog like that though. So sad, but it was a freak accident.[/QUOTE]

I know it's very sad, she first said she could not jump on the couch then she said she jumped to get the ball, I think she probably meant that she got on the couch with the stairs but then jumped off, that's why I keep thinking it's not good to encourage a pet to get up on something that is not safe for them to get off.

I often feel the way Lola plays puts her one or two steps from death, I am constantly trying to protect her from herself. She also likes to bring a toy on the couch and then jump off expecting us to throw it to her, I don't but my husband does and we fight over it constantly. We have a large glass coffee table and he eats dinner at it, I keep pushing the table away several feet and he keeps pulling it back I am afraid she will hit her head on it because she jumps off while looking back at us to see if we are going to throw the toy. Today I was carrying stuff down to the basement, my hands were full so I could not close the door behind me, but I did not worry since she does well on those stairs but this time she decided just as I was heading down to push her ball down the steps, normally she likes to watch it bounce but she thinks like a dog and I believe she wanted to beat me to the ball, LOL even though I had no plans to get it. She started running full throttle down the steps so fast that she had trouble stopping so she ran into the wall at the bottom of the stairs, thankfully she has learned to pull back quickly so she did not hit to hard, but if she was more frail and perhaps had a few issues who knows what could have happened. I used to very happy to have a pup that likes to fetch but she is so crazy about it that I think she could easily get hurt.

[JadeD]

I don't know what happened to Teek in his past life, but he jumps straight up to look on the couch before jumping up on it. I think he landed on something at one point and he looks every time to make sure it is clear. It is so funny to watch.

[KazzyK810]

Originally Posted by DBlain

I know that it is common to have yorkies on furniture even if someone is not sitting with them and that has always baffled me. I have friends that come over with their pups and even though no one is sitting on my couch most of the dogs head for it and several walk across the top of it and my couch sits in the middle of the great room, so it's not even to look out a window.

Ha! Stop talking about ZoE like that! lol . You know she likes your couch, including the back of it! But, I confess it surprised the heck out of me when she jumped off the back of your couch. She was in the air so long it looked like she was flying! She never does that at home...well she can't as my sofa. & chaise lounge are both backing up to windows. And ZoE always uses her steps to get up and off my bed, and has never just jumped off the bed. In fact she'll stand there and cry if her steps get moved away.

Maybe it's because at your home, she has room to jump? She had five feet or more of open space to land off the back of your couch. At my little house, when Zo is on any furniture, she's two feet from a wall, or cabinet or table, so there's no safe room to land. Maybe that's why she doesn't try it at home?

Originally Posted by DBlain

. Everyone's situation is different so I am curious if many of you have pups sleeping on your bed or couches when no human's are in them.

Yes! ZoE sleeps on my bed almost all of the time I am gone. In summer, she'll occasionally sleep on the back of the sofa or chaise (that overlooks the driveway) in the living room, and will sometimes hang out in the sunroom on the chair, looking out the window. But in the winter, she just snuggles in my duvet for most of the day.

[107barney]

I have had dog stairs forever. They are trained to go up and down. I've left them on the bed while gone but not generally. One dog is an epileptic so stairs are not safe unless we are there.

[DBlain]

Originally Posted by JadeD

I don't know what happened to Teek in his past life, but he jumps straight up to look on the couch before jumping up on it. I think he landed on something at one point and he looks every time to make sure it is clear. It is so funny to watch.

smart dog, LOL one of my past yorkies was the cutest but not the smartest, I used to have small bathroom and the toilet was next to the sink I would stand at the sink blowing drying my hair and the cover of the toilet was usually down so he started jumping on it to sit and be closer to me while I got ready, well one day the lid was up, and yep he jumped up and splash landed in the bowl, it was so funny (at least to me) he got soaking wet, (LOL thankfully I am diligent about flushing) He never forgot that incident, often I would see him come running getting ready to jump up and then he would pull back.

[DBlain]

Originally Posted by KazzyK810

Ha! Stop talking about ZoE like that! lol . You know she likes your couch, including the back of it! But, I confess it surprised the heck out of me when she jumped off the back of your couch. She was in the air so long it looked like she was flying! She never does that at home...well she can't as my sofa. & chaise lounge are both backing up to windows. And ZoE always uses her steps to get up and off my bed, and has never just jumped off the bed. In fact she'll stand there and cry if her steps get moved away.

Maybe it's because at your home, she has room to jump? She had five feet or more of open space to land off the back of your couch. At my little house, when Zo is on any furniture, she's two feet from a wall, or cabinet or table, so there's no safe room to land. Maybe that's why she doesn't try it at home?

Yes! ZoE sleeps on my bed almost all of the time I am gone. In summer, she'll occasionally sleep on the back of the sofa or chaise (that overlooks the driveway) in the living room, and will sometimes hang out in the sunroom on the chair, looking out the window. But in the winter, she just snuggles in my duvet for most of the day.

LOL I remember that leep thinking cripes I hope I don't get sued if she crash lands Nali does it at well and she has even jumped on my bed which is really high off the ground. Do you have many beds for ZoE, I think you know how bed obsessed I am for Lola