Rushing the Stairs and Building Stair Confidence (Patreon)

In this video I'm working with Morty, a 10 week old Golden Retriever Puppy. Morty was a service dog prospect in the puppy program I ran in Colorado. His handler was having issues with him pulling/dragging her up and down the stairs.

When I see a dog that pulls or drags up the stairs (or even rushes them in the home off-leash), we're generally seeing a dog that isn't confident on the stairs or lacks body awareness. They rush the stairs because it’s hard for them to know where their feet are (especially back feet) and they are afraid of falling or tripping. Or they simply lack the control to manage their own bodyweight going down. So here I work with Morty on confidence. I work him on every step, either having him hand touch or using a food lure to stop him on each step, showing him that he can pause confidently on every step. You’ll hear me talking about the process during the second half of the video.

Although this dog was going to grow up to be a service dog and calm stair work would be important, this is also important for dogs that aren’t going to be service dogs. Dogs that are confident with their bodies have an easier time training, and also feel more confident with themselves.

Concurrent to our work on stairs we also worked on unstable surfaces, doing pause point training, and other body-awareness exercises. I’ll be posting some other exercises you can do with your dog to build body awareness and confidence this month (and help tire them out mentally and physically).

If you have a specific body awareness exercise you’d like me to post a video of, please comment below, otherwise follow along with the exercises we work on this month to help your dog feel more comfortable in their skin, making it easier for them to execute behaviors as simple as sits and downs, and more complicated behaviors like jumping into a kayak!

Have a great Monday everyone!