Reinforcing good behavior is an important part of dog training, which is why the dogs at Stone Manor are constantly being put through their paces.
They need to sit when Mama’s in the kitchen working, they lay down when we eat dinner. We practice recalls in the yard and when we’re walking we work on heeling.
Delilah and I take the occasional training class just to keep us on our toes and help keep her mentally sharp. So when the Train Your Dog Challenge, hosted by Something Wagging This Way Comes, Rescued Insanity and Alfie’s Blog came up, I wondered, just what exactly am I going to train the dogs to do?
Some of you may remember that last year, I heeled Delilah with a chick pea.
I know right? Amazing the things you can do with a highly food motivated dog.
But this year was a bust. I had no idea what to do. And then Sampson came down with a partial ACL tear and my vet suggested pet steps for the bed, couch and car.
How hard could it be? We use stairs every day. There are stairs into our house. Stairs down from our deck. Stairs up into the back yard.
The dogs use stairs in one form or another every single day.
This was going to be cake.
It took a while but I finally found a set of stairs that could hold a dog over 50 pounds and I set them up in front of the bed.
I called Sampson in and using some treats coaxed him up the stairs and back down. I did this about three times and each time I did it I said, “Stairs.”
The next time we went into the bedroom I said, “Stairs.”
And Sampson jumped on the bed.
I asked him to get off the bed via the stairs.
He jumped over them.
I’d bring his night time treat in and hold it in front of the stairs and he walks past them and jumps on the bed.
I’ve seen him use the stairs on his own without being coaxed, once.
ONCE!
Dammit, this is my easy dog!!
So once again, we busted out the treats.
He does fine when I’m coaxing him with treats, which I will continue to do at least three or four times per day. My goal is to get him so comfortable he uses the stairs without being coaxed.
Hubby and I have decided that even when Sampson’s restrictions are lifted, we will keep the stairs. Sampson will be ten this year and Delilah will be nine and odds are at some point the stairs may be permanently needed.
Did you participate in Train Your Dog month? What were your goals? Did you succeed or did you struggle like I did?
Those stairs are a great idea as all that jumping can be bad for us especially when we are getting older. Well done on the training. Have a marvellous Monday.
Best wishes Molly
Haha! Oh Sampson! You silly pup!
I think hes toying with you lol
Happy Monday!
((husky hugz frum da pack))
“love is being owned by a husky”
We would like those stairs a LOT… we can’t jump ON the bed at all… OFF we can do.. butt mom doesn’t want us to…
We like that you made a Short Cut.. around them though… that is kinda funny… butt we think you SHOULD use them.
I’m so glad I’m not alone here. You cannot enter or leave our house without using steps. It’s a two story house. With a basement. And an attic.
Honey takes stairs all the time.
But when I try to get her to go up 2 or 3 outside somewhere, she’ll walk around them like they’re the freakiest thing ever.
I will definitely follow your example with Sampson and see what we can do together. Because someday Honey will definitely need this skill set.
So glad you joined the challenge!
I can see these guys doing that exact thing. I set up a box under the couch for Roxy to go up and down, does she use it. Nope.
Ithink I need to get these for my norbert
retro rover
I think stairs and ramps are a really good idea for older dogs. I don’t know what it is about them, but most dogs hate to use them if they can jump the distance. Good job on working with Sampson and getting him to use them. Hopefully he will figure out that is is better for him in the long run.
😀 Silly Sampson. It’s only natural for them to want to jump. But I can definitely see why it is a good idea to use the stairs instead.
That’s a good thing to train a dog for! If we still had our old bed I would be doing the same. (It’s now in the guest room and it’s ridiculously high off the ground – might need to get stairs for when my mom comes to stay…) Luckily our new bed is super low to the ground – probably as low as that first stair.
I should have participated in the training thing – but I was lazy! 🙂
I put pergo down in my bedroom and the dogs would slip out and falljumping up and down…so i had tp ut in area rug on the side and foot of the bed so they could get a grip…amzing what we do for them. 2.000 so i wouldnt have rugs anymore….and now i have rugs…go figure…good thing my husband is easy going. Lol
We’ve got stairs to our bed too, we’ve had them for quite a while. We got them for Kobi when he started to have trouble jumping some, and our bed was so high. He and Cricket took to them very quickly, with very little training. But our golden Sheba would have nothing to do with them, even when coaxed with treats. We basically gave up. Then all of the sudden a month or two ago, she started using them! I have no idea why she finally gave in.
We’re lucky that we live in a ranch style house with only a few steps here and there. Our Sally needed those stairs to get on the bed and the sofa and we had the exact same set of stairs as you have in the picture. She took to them really easily – saw their usefulness in getting up and down. I know soon I’ll need them for Maggie – although neither her or Jack get on the bed or sofa, but there’s a 2-step set they have to take to get outside and Maggie tends to jump them, so we’ll need to fashion a landing of some type soon. You’re smart to keep them there for Sampson – might as well let him continue – that’s a long jump that’s not good for old bones.
Good job, you did much better than I did teaching Norman to use the steps. Yours are different than mine, wider and only two so I think that would be much easier.
Funny! We don’t go on the furniture and Mom always lifts us in and out of the car. Mom says all that jumping is bad for out joints and lifting is good for her muscles so it works out. Bailie does sleep in bed, but she never jumps in or out on her own, Mom always lifts her. We have thought about stairs one day when Bailie is older and can be trusted to roam the house at night if she chooses but we aren’t sure. So funny that he doesn’t want to use the stairs, it seems so easy and logical!
Some habits are just so hard to change. It probably doesn’t really occur to him to use the stairs without a lot of prompting. He just does what he always does, out of routine. I think it’s great that you are so dedicated to working on this. It is good for his brain as well as his body.
When Shiva had surgery last year and wasn’t allowed to use stairs at all, the three steps at the front of our house were such a pain. I had to carry her inside and outside multiple times a day. I was so glad she is less than fifty pounds. I don’t know what I would have done if she was Sampson size!
Thank you so much for participating in the challenge!
Rooooo – you’re gonna need to put a fence around the bed before he choses the stairs over jumping! *Waggy tail*
Hi Y’all!
Why use stairs when it’s easier and quicker (not to mention fun) to jump?
Y’all come by now,
Hawk aka BrownDog
Really great idea. Can you come over and teach Tavish to go up our patio stairs? He seems to handle other stairs just fine, but he stares at these stairs (heh) like they are made of question marks.