Never in my life did I ever think that I would buy a “Doggy Stairs.” I’m sure most people would be in agreement with that statement. However, most people love their animals deeply and would do as much as they can to help their pets. We have two little Shitz Tzu’s, Jake and Chance. Jake, we got as a puppy from a pet store. Chance was gotten at a shelter with Lilly who we recently had to put down. Having spent the first few years of their life in a cage together Chance and Lilly were quite a challenge for us to try and shall we say normalize them. He’s about 8 years old now and still Chance backs away in what seems like fear when I raise my hand to pick him up or pet him.

Since Lilly’s passing, he has been alone in the cage at night (he likes it in there, in fact, he runs to it at night). Even so, in the early morning, it’s like he doesn’t want to be alone and wants out and wants to get close to the wife on the bed. This is usually 5 minutes after I have left the house for work.

With the wife’s debilitating condition she can’t lift the dogs anymore as it would send excoriating pain up her spine. Hence the purchase of the Doggie Stairs. The whole thing when set up is about 25 inches wide and goes up four steps to a height of 25 inches. To a small dog at their height, this contraption must look enormous. Unfortunately for us the only stairs our dogs have ever had to deal with are our front steps or back yard patio door steps. Both of which consist of two steps in total. I think it will take a couple of days for them to get acclimated to its presence in the room. We tried pieces of doggie treats on the steps last night but the only interest was the first step where they could see the treat only after we pointed it out to them. Otherwise, it was, get me away from this alien object that suddenly appeared here before them. Lilly would have just stood off to the side and kept barking at it to defend us all from its existence.

So I guess were in doggie training mode for a while to teach them how to climb stairs and risk their lives for their eventual enjoyment of squirming in our blankets while upside down rubbing every inch of their backs and head until completely satisfied.