What, or who, goes up … doesn’t always come down.

Stairs.

Orly learned how to go up and down stairs well before I met her, and never had any issue with the (many) stairs in our house.

Dotty had not encountered a tall staircase, and found the steep mountains in front of her a little scary.

She did quickly master the short 2-3 steps to the back, and then the front yards. Down first. Up took a little longer, but she got that too.

Next up — the house stairs.

My old-school attempts to lure her, one or two stairs at a time failed. I started with the stairs to the office, thinking the rubber runners would give her a good grip and ease her fears. She was willing to stretch enough to reach the treats on the edge of one step … but not move her paws so she could reach farther.

We tried the carpeted basement stairs, with a non-slip mat at the bottom. No luck.

Hm.

Stumped, I asked the expert (Glenn, who runs Dotty’s service dog school).

He said that going down would be less scary than up. Dotty is clearly not related to me. My (mild … ish) fear of heights makes going down far more uncomfortable.

Anyhow. He suggested sitting with her a few steps up from the bottom and letting her think about it for a while. We did that, then I let her walk down 3 steps. Success.

We did that a bunch of times, slowly adding a step or two.

I also worked in the other direction, carrying her most of the way up, then letting her tackle the top 2-3 steps.

We practiced all of this over a couple of days, also working on what Glenn calls the “follow me” routine. This encourages the puppy to go wherever I go, which she is naturally inclined to do anyhow.

After a few days of steady success with small numbers of stairs, I took a leap of faith. She seemed more confident on “up,” so I headed up the stairs with my hands full of stuff, and called out “Come on girls, follow me.”

Not surprisingly, Orly trotted up the stairs. Dotty hesitated. Whimpered once. Then she got a determined look on her fluffy little face and … followed me all the way up!

Proud of herself, she did a little dance at the top. And eagerly accepted her reward — lots of praise and petting as well as a cookie.

She also soon figured out that she could get herself up the stairs any time she wanted. Only problem is … we’re still working on down the stairs. She’s gotten herself upstairs several times now, realized she was alone, and, yep, next thing you know, I’m running up the stairs to rescue 18 pounds of wriggly puppy who has instantly transformed from despairing to delighted.