Gizmo Conquers His Fears – Dogster

Welcome to Dogster dogs on Wednesday! Every Wednesday, we share a story about one of our dogs. This week is about Kate and Gizmo, its script is mixed.

The last time you heard from me, I told you about all Gizmo’s sports and I play at meal. One of these games, scanner haunts, uses stairs as a heavy hidden space. Gizmo delicately chooses its way up and down the stairs, checking each step well as a spy slash blood hound slash rock mountaineer. But it was not always …

When I first adopted Gizmo, he had no idea how to go up or down the stairs. I adopted it as an adult rescue, so I do not know that he has experienced his previous experience with the stairs, but it is clear that something about this ladder is torturing his small brain.

The fear of the ladder

Let me say that I live in an old Victorian house with polished wood stairs. This is just a flight, which has a little landing, a handful of, and a few steps below. It’s a good -looking ladder, but it is also very smooth and incredibly slippery if you are wearing socks or are not cautious where you keep your claws.

I tried to lure him the first set of steps with behavior, call it up from the top, and to submit it down a few steps from the top. When I went to the stairs without it, he shouted from the bottom – this little Velcro dog, was never happy to be alone.

I work from home, and I had my desk in the upper part of the stairs. On the day I brought him home, I raised the stairs to join me during the work day. When I went down without it for lunch, he repeated again but did not try bad stairs.

In fact, it was a kind of relief: put it on the stairs or down, and he stayed there. And when his small land shark took the step, I could only walk down the ladder and avoid sharp teeth.

One step at a time… or not

At this point, I thought it would probably be a gradual process. I showed the picture of Gizmo slowly, cautiously learned every step at a time, may eventually require a pickup for a few weeks, before making it fully. But one day, I left it on the first floor when I pop up upwards to catch something. The next thing I knew about, there was a thunderstorm of small pins and its sharp head appeared in the upper part of the stairs!

I think his desire eliminates the fear of the stairs with me (all the time), and he just went for him. Gizmo’s default ladder method was fixed faster: in about 5 seconds, he operates the entire flight up to the landing, then stops to see if I am following or not –

Advanced ladder techniques

Now that they are relying on the basic ladder mechanics, Gizmo and I am working on some other modern techniques. Part of it is up and down, go up or down a single ladder at a time, and to observe me in the room from the middle of the stairs (just joking about this last – I training to do it No!)

To follow these difficult skills, I set up training courses – such as keeping a piece of bubbles on each ladder, changing sides, so that they could practice the stairs and practice. At this point, she’s basically a Olympian!

Now he likes to stand outside the window on the landing – this is a great place to barking on the titrophop of squirrels on the fence all day. In fact, the training must have been a little Lot Effective …

Mr. Stair Master

Gizmo is a trusted man (maybe because of his initial steadam), but the stairs are found to be the best of it. Of course, you will never know today while running fast!

Have your dog ever struggled with the stairs? Help Gizmo feel better about your learning curved posts by sharing your story in the comments!