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.
I read recipes the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and I think, "Well, that’s not going to happen."
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Originally Posted by Wade Lippman
Oh wait its a 3D Printer my bad LOL 
