{"id":5950,"date":"2015-04-30T05:00:58","date_gmt":"2015-04-30T09:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yourdesignerdogblog.com\/?p=5950"},"modified":"2015-04-30T04:59:19","modified_gmt":"2015-04-30T08:59:19","slug":"re-learning-the-stairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.yourdesignerdogblog.com\/2015\/04\/30\/re-learning-the-stairs\/","title":{"rendered":"Re-Learning the Stairs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sadie is almost three years old now and has gone up and down countless flights of stairs. But there is one particular\u00a0set of stairs\u00a0she’s never traversed on her own – the main stairs up to the second floor apartment where we live. Sadie is fine with the stairs in the office because they’re carpeted. She’s comfortable with the brick steps up to the front door and even with the rugged wooden steps off of our back deck. But shiny, slippery, interior wooden stairs were out of the question. If she was a bigger dog I may have worked on convincing her to try those stairs. But since she’s small enough to carry and I knew we would be getting those stairs carpeted eventually, I decided to err on the safer side and just carry her up and down those slippery steps. But now the time has finally come. We just had carpet installed on ‘the’ stairs. All I need to do is convince Sadie that the stairs are now safe and she will no longer be carried up or down them anymore.<\/div>\n

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I started the process at the top of the stairs. Big mistake. I spent valuable time trying to convince \u00a0Sadie to step off the landing, but she just wouldn’t go. Eventually I took her off the landing and placed her on the top step to get her moving downward, but she just stood on that top step and refused to move. After more negotiations, which Sadie won, I gave up and carried her down the stairs. We went outside for a potty break. When we came back in, Sadie stepped up to the bottom step, then looked back at me. All I said was “Go ahead” and she shot up those stairs like a bolt of lightening. I couldn’t have been more proud of her.<\/div>\n

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