Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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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
My dad put carpet down in strips on my parent's wooden stairs. There is a super double sticky mat you stick the carpet and wood to and they work well. Though my dad only put a strip in the middle portion of the stairs while my dog likes to go up the sides near the wall. She fell a couple times last I went to my parents house and now she is scared of the stairs even though she used to go up and down them with the carpet strips before. So I suggest COVER THE WHOLE STAIR. Chloe too whines when I am upstairs... I have found that if i help her up the first step, she will do the rest on her own. Big baby.
So in summary, the sticky carpet strips work. My dad did them himself, but like I said, COVER THE WHOLE STAIR for each STEP!!! Good luck!
-Nicole
P.S. Looks like I will be training chloe to use the stairs again since she is no longer confident in using them since she fell a couple times. Poor girl
Chloe became a rear amp tripawd on 7-29-10. Another tumor was removed on front leg 2-20-14. Found 3rd tumor on neck 2-2015, but she's still kicking cancer's butt at age 14. Chloe's blog
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.
I do agree with that, last year I lived in a house with carpeted stairs which Chloe had to go up/down every day (15 of them!) and she was confident going up/down carpeted, wooden, sandy stairs; but since we moved to a "flat house" (6 months now) she only has to go up the three shallow brick stairs to the front door. Those aren't scary. But 5 big wooden slippery ones are scary again!!! So I will be working with her again when I go home for the holidays since the backyard is up on the floor with the 5 scary stairs.
Let me know how Ajax does once you get the carpet strips!!
-Nicole
Chloe became a rear amp tripawd on 7-29-10. Another tumor was removed on front leg 2-20-14. Found 3rd tumor on neck 2-2015, but she's still kicking cancer's butt at age 14. Chloe's blog
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