Aging dog and stairs. Help needed.

[Raymond Fries]

My daughter has a 10 year old golden retriever and lives in an upstairs apartment. Poor Charles can hardly walk up the stairs anymore. She really cannot afford to move at this time as she has a really sweet deal where she is.

She asked me if I could make her some sort of ramp to ease the walk. I thought about 1/2" plywood with horizontal strips of wood like say every 12" for some grip.

Has anyone made something like this or has a better idea?

Thanks for any help or direction.

[Erik Loza]

How many stairs? We've been through this.

Erik

[Stan Calow]

I made a short (4 step) ramp from 2x4s, plywood and an old carpet runner. But dog refused to get on it. Sadly frustrating. Good luck.

[Mel Fulks]

Did not see what the present surface is. If it's bare wood ,you could put down a strip of carpeting on one side. Stairs are being built too steep. Your family deserves a break, good luck to you.

[Erik Loza]

Did not see what the present surface is. If it's bare wood ,you could put down a strip of carpeting on one side..

That's my suggestion. We tried a ramp for our German Shepherd but it weirded him out. Carpet was the solution.

Erik

[Rich Engelhardt]

synovi g4...

Easier than building a ramp & probably better overall.

10 really isn't all that old.

[Bruce Page]

Our yellow lab could no longer climb the 7 stairs to get up to the dog run in our backyard. I made a ramp using two 2"x12"x10' side by side that I covered with astro-turf. I then nailed 3/4" wood half rounds over the astro-turf spaced ~ every 10". He used the ramp for another year before he passed. The astro-turf & half rounds gave him good traction.

Rich brings up a good point. Our current two labs are given Cosequin DS morning & night.

[John Ziebron]

I've had a couple of my own dogs with this issue. And while volunteering for Leader Dogs for the Blind I built a couple of ramps for them as well to get dogs in and out of their vans to be taken for medical treatment. A simple plywood based ramp with covering works well. In all cases I used short pile indoor/outdoor carpeting which is relatively inexpensive. You must use a leash on the dog for control on the ramp and treats for coaxing if necessary.

[Wade Lippman]

They make harnesses with handles to help a dog walk.

[Raymond Fries]

Waiting to hear back on the number of steps. As I recall, there is about 10 steps up to a landing rhen a turn to the left for two more steps. The steps are oak with those non skid treads which are sort of like shingles.

Alot of good ideas here. Hopefully the landlord will approve attaching something to the stairs. The carpet sounds great but not sure if it will work for Charles.The stairs are a little steep and the dog seems to struggle. Will the ramp make it much easier?

[Eduard Nemirovsky]

My dog refuse going on the ramp.
Ed.

Waiting to hear back on the number of steps. As I recall, there is about 10 steps up to a landing rhen a turn to the left for two more steps. The steps are oak with those non skid treads which are sort of like shingles.

Alot of good ideas here. Hopefully the landlord will approve attaching something to the stairs. The carpet sounds great but not sure if it will work for Charles.The stairs are a little steep and the dog seems to struggle. Will the ramp make it much easier?

[Matt Day]

They make harnesses with handles to help a dog walk.

This sounds like a good thing to try first, assuming your daughter could handle it.

[Jon Nuckles]

My dog (65 lbs) shattered a front leg and was in a cast for 4 months -- 1 to see if it would heal without surgery, then 3 after surgery to fuse the joint. We lived in a condo two and a half flights up at the time. I ended up carrying her up and down the stairs, but we did look into other options. One was using a hoist and a harness that some rock climbers use to bring their dogs along on their climbs. Seriously! We never got farther along that path than doing some internet research, but if she has a deck or window where you could rig something up it might work for her. Good luck.

[Michael Schneider]

Ruffwear is a great company that makes many harnesses for dogs. Give them a call and they will help you pick up what you need.

http://www.ruffwear.com/

Good luck
Michael

[Raymond Fries]

Thanks for all of the ideas everyone. I think she is going to try the ruffwear harness first. It looks really nice.

Tools for ramp standing by...

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

She can also improvise with using a beach towel or firewood carrier with the strap handles to help guide the dog up/down the stairs. For one of my dogs, I used a doggy life jacket because it had the handle on top and a strap around the chest and belly and she only needed a little bit of help.

I built a ramp for my dog that "smooshed his knee" and went from being able to scale 8' walls to barely being able to climb 1 step. Like Bruce, I started out with two 2" x 12" x 10' planks side-by-side and covered them with indoor/outdoor carpet thinking that would be better traction then astroturf during rainy season. It took several training sessions with him to get him to use it and he needed constant reminders because his brain kept telling him "I can jump them all. I've done that my whole life." The indoor/outdoor carpet wore out and I replaced it with leftover roof shingles for traction. This worked well, but wore down with use and needed to be replaced. Then Dog #2 then needed to use it when age & arthritis crept in. She only used it going up steps. Once again, she needed a bit of training with treats to show her how this is done and "you can do it" and she was off to the races. Meanwhile, I thought Dog #3 was using the ramp to go down the steps "for fun" all these years and it turned out her old shoulder injury while herding sheep was painful for her to go down steps. I never had to train her to use it. She learned by watching the older ones use it. Our new home has more steps, so the ramp is steeper. It became too slippery for Dog #3 now that she's an old lady. I fixed that with using some rolls of 4" safety texture tape and that has held up well so far.

The ramp has served it's purpose many times over.

[Mel Fulks]

They make harnesses with handles to help a dog walk.
New ethical question : "is he helping that dog?...or using him as a briefcase ?"

[Bill Gugel]

We had a 75# yellow lab with the same problem, check out a Rimadyl script from the vet. Night and day difference in the way the dog moved.

[Erik Loza]

New ethical question : "is he helping that dog?...or using him as a briefcase ?"

Joking aside, we looked at this possibility when our late Shepherd's hips started to go and decided it was time to let him go rather than go this route. We also looked at the trolley-type setups. His front half was still strong but no control over the back half. Our house is not that big and we felt that he would be a constant state of anxiety and stress, just trying to move around and crashing into furniture, getting stuck, etc. In other words, his quality of life would not have been improved and maybe even gotten worse. Of course, that is a very personal decision that nobody should make but you and your family.


We had a 75# yellow lab with the same problem, check out a Rimadyl script from the vet. Night and day difference in the way the dog moved.

We had good luck with Rimadyl for a while but it became a battle in the end. I guess it tastes terrible. We would wrap it in cheese or peanut butter and that worked for a time but Leonard seemed to get to the point where he resented us trying to administer it every day, which created issues unto itself. No easy answers in any of this.

Erik

[Bert Kemp]

I did this also and dog would not get on it. Maybe carpet will work

[Stew Hagerty]

Raymond,

You have several good pieces of advise already, so I'm instead going to go in a different direction. In addition to devices & systems to help him get upstairs, I would like to recommend something to help him feel better in general. Our cat is 15 and has some arthritic symptoms such as limping and reduced activity level. We started giving him Cosequin (as advertised by Jack Hanna on TV). Within a week he was feeling much better and in 2-3 he was no longer limping at all. His energy level is up, and he seems like he got several years younger. He's even started jumping from my wife's chair to the sofa, a distance of nearly 6'! For us, this medicine has been a miracle. I highly recommend it! It works! http://www.1800petmeds.com/Cosequin-prod10317.html

(http://www.1800petmeds.com/Cosequin-prod10317.html)