Helping a Cavapoo Puppy Get Over Her Fear of the Stairs

By: David Codr

Published Date: March 1, 2019

Ellie Cava Puppy - Helping a Cavapoo Puppy Get Over Her Fear of the Stairs

For this Omaha dog training session we helped 4 year-old Cavapoo Ellie get over her fear of the stairs and stop having accidents in the house.

Ellie was quite excited to meet me. She jumped up and ran around so I ignored her to communicate I didn’t like those action or energy. Anything a dog is doing when you pet it is what you are rewarding. So petting or even correcting a dog for jumping rewards the exact behavior you want to stop.

Once Ellie settled down a bit, I asked for a sit and when she did, I rewarded her. As soon as she started to get excited again or jump up, I immediately stopped. This went on for a few minutes, but eventually Ellie started to figure it out and was offering a sit as a way of asking for attention. We call this “Manding.”

One of Ellie’s dog behavior problems was a fear of using the stairs. Ive worked with many dogs scared of using the stairs and have come up with a few ways to help a dog get over a fear of the stairs. Ellie’s guardians had tried a few of these, verbal encouragement and leaving a treat on each step. But Ellie wasn’t having either of those.

You can learn how to help a dog get over a fear of using steps in the free dog behavior training video below.

Helping a dog stop feeling anxious about stairs is all about putting it in a position to succeed. By lowering the criteria, ie less steps, Ellie was able to succeed. First with one step, then two, then three. With a little practice, Ellie’s days of being scared to go down the stairs will be a distant memory.

I shared a number of other tips to help Ellie, keeping things nice and easy so you don’t have to be a professional Cavapoo trainer to teach puppies this smart.

One of the other puppy training tips I shared was on potty training as Ellie has had some accidents in the house. You can learn how to potty train any puppy or adult dog by watching the free dog training video below on potty training.

To help the guardians remember everything we covered in this in home dog training session, we recorded a roadmap to success video that you can check out below.

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This post was written by: David Codr