Post by Mr Tink on Jan 25, 2015 19:41:19 GMT
I was interested to read Andrea's most recent update on Polo as I had been meaning to post something about Mia (Polo's sister) and her attitude to stairs. This was prompted by something that happened on Friday.
We went to visit my Uncle and Aunt; they live in a really nice second floor flat and there is no lift in their building only four short flights of stairs. Mia can be funny about stairs but given time and encouragement she usually manages them. If we are in a hurry Tony will often carry her but I have never been confident with picking them up and certainly not lifting them up and down stairs. Anyhow I arrived at my Uncle and Aunt's place and had a stressful 10 minutes trying to get Mia upstairs. She doesn't like wooden floors and unfortunately the stairs were hard wood with tiles either side (nothing for her claws to grip onto). We struggled up the first two flights with the aid of her own bodyweight in treats then all of a sudden she sauntered up the next two flights with no trouble at all - little devil!
We had a lovely afternoon and Mia was on her best behaviour but when we came to leave, getting downstairs was even worse. She was really frightened and while she got her front legs down the first couple of steps she couldn't work out what to do with her back legs. Poor thing. Eventually - although I'll never know how she managed it - we got down all four flights but it took about 20 minutes! She hasn't suffered any ill-effects and was quite happy once down.
Tink goes up and downstairs with ease all the time which is funny because he didn't go up for the first two years; at home Mia has a particular technique with the stairs that involves front feet on third stair, a long stretch then propels herself up at full speed. She comes down fine.
Do others have similar issues with greyhounds and stairs?
We went to visit my Uncle and Aunt; they live in a really nice second floor flat and there is no lift in their building only four short flights of stairs. Mia can be funny about stairs but given time and encouragement she usually manages them. If we are in a hurry Tony will often carry her but I have never been confident with picking them up and certainly not lifting them up and down stairs. Anyhow I arrived at my Uncle and Aunt's place and had a stressful 10 minutes trying to get Mia upstairs. She doesn't like wooden floors and unfortunately the stairs were hard wood with tiles either side (nothing for her claws to grip onto). We struggled up the first two flights with the aid of her own bodyweight in treats then all of a sudden she sauntered up the next two flights with no trouble at all - little devil!
We had a lovely afternoon and Mia was on her best behaviour but when we came to leave, getting downstairs was even worse. She was really frightened and while she got her front legs down the first couple of steps she couldn't work out what to do with her back legs. Poor thing. Eventually - although I'll never know how she managed it - we got down all four flights but it took about 20 minutes! She hasn't suffered any ill-effects and was quite happy once down.
Tink goes up and downstairs with ease all the time which is funny because he didn't go up for the first two years; at home Mia has a particular technique with the stairs that involves front feet on third stair, a long stretch then propels herself up at full speed. She comes down fine.
Do others have similar issues with greyhounds and stairs?