Hi, I just saw the posts about Charlie's parents carpeting the stairs, which is awesome.  We have a friends' house we go to where we "carpet" temporarily with yoga mats, which is an excellent portable solution if you are a guest.  We have an elevator in the city, but Ajax's grandparents have a house at the beach with v. steep slippery stairs.  Ajax refuses to go up them, but also is quite vocal about not wanting to be downstairs when I'm upstairs.

Not wanting to undertake a massive project for a weekend home (Animal MedicaL Center is now the proud receipient of my 2010 and 2011 redecorating and clothign budgets), we are wondering if anyone has used those stair carpet strips?  I've seen them in one of the dog catalogs – can't remember which one – and also other random catalogs like Frontgate and Solutions.

Anyone know what I mean?  Anyone tried it? 

Thanks

K 

Thanks!  I made mistake w/ Ajax b/c we were convalescing after his stitches came out at our friends big house.  Since he was running through sprinkler and jumping in pool, I figured he was fine.  Put him in his ruffwear harness figuring he'd trust me to help him up the admittedly long and slippery staircase.  Not so much.  With lots of work, we have not gotten same staircase covered with yoga mats to work.  But I am concerned about a human tripping on the yoga mats at the beach house. 

SO – thank you and I;m sure you are right about the whole stair – he would see right past that "center of the stair" ruse! 

I meant to actually write a post about this suggesting to all tripawd owners who can't easily carry their dogs up or down stairs that they work on training them to do stairs even if there are none in the house.  This year when the hurricane was supposed to hit NYC the buildings turned off all the elevators so people wouldn't get stuck.  Fortunately it was just overnight, but otherwise Ajax would have had tol live in the lobby b/c if he doesn't want to go up stairs, there is NO WAY I can even drag him up.  So I meant to post that all owners of large tripawds whose dogs have the physical ability if not the desire should work on stairs even if they dno't need them every day. 

Ah, city living.