The dog in the back in this picture is my mom’s dog Indiana. Indiana couldn’t walk down stairs until earlier this summer. And he’s 6 years old. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.

He’s always been afraid of stairs, and my mom and dad accommodated him by carrying him down stairs every time he wanted to go down some stairs. He has never had any problem going up, but he never did like going down. The problem with that is that he thought it was a fun game to bark until you came to carry you downstairs and run away. My mom and dad are getting too old for that, so I decided earlier this summer that I was going to teach him to walk down stairs if it killed me.

I sat him on top of the low, wide steps that are on my mom’s back porch. Then I helped him move his front set of paws down to the second step. That scared him, so I finally got his very favorite treat- a Greenie- and used it to lure him down the stairs. I did this every time I came over to the house for several weeks. Then, he finally hopped down the stairs on his own. He realized how much easier it was to take himself downstairs and started going down other sets of stairs.

Just this morning I was at my mom’s house and when I walked in, I watched him bunny hop down the big set of stairs to come see me. I feel so proud- I taught him that!