My dog is getting worse and worse at some stairs

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She seems to do fine on stair platform to bed. Struggles a bit on outside stairs.

But when we came up from basement last night after storm/tornado warning thingy, she was really having problems.

She got up 3 or 4 stairs, my mom was behind her, and then she backed out and went back down. Then she kept barking at bottom of steps and try to get up them…moving her little back legs to try to hit the step and missing. She eventually gave up and went wandering around the basement.

I was hoping she would be able to get it eventually on her own, as she usually does, but finally I had to go down and help her. She ran away from me at first because I think the stairs were scaring her. Then I got her to come and tried to help her to do it on her own.

That did not work, so I finally had to carry her up the steps.

She is not light.

I think the issue might be a combination of the 'backwards knees" vet mentioned, making her range of motion in back legs less, her weight and psychological.

Anywho, it kind of sucks that she is having problems with stairs at such a young age.

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Oh poor Maggie
One of my previous dogs, the mongrel I owned had trouble with stairs.

He was physically capable but psychologically he was fearful.

This applied to long staircases only

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Dogs have an innate ability to sense storms and stuff all animals do I think. Maybe she was scared of the storm?

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Poor baby. I don’t know if it would help because of her knee issues, but maybe checking out one of those assistance slings would be worth it?

dog sling

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thats a good idea that I had not thought of. Thanks.

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Yeah i had one of those for my dog. It sucks when you see them starting to slow down. :slightly_frowning_face:

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maggie is only 5.25 years old :confused: . I dont think its an age issue for her. Vet did say that she could start to have joint issues with her weird reverse knees if she did not lose weight. It’s possible she might have arthritis or something. I dont know.

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Yeah that is pretty young. Maybe it’s worth taking a trip to the vet to see what they can do.

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@Bowens , I second using the assistance device.

Also, daily glucosamine has done wonders for my 14 year old Shih Tsu.

I noticed improvement after about 3 weeks of taking it daily.

He gets the chewable fog ones with peanut butter on them.

Works like a charm.

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Thanks. Yeah, our vet had us giving her glucosamine for a while. Maybe I should order some more. They stink to high heaven :skunk: :dash:. I’ll see if chewy has assitance device as well.

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I’m sorry the glucosamine isn’t helping enough. That’s sucks.

Some dogs respond well to cbd oil specifically made for dogs.

Good luck :slight_smile:

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