Make your stairs easier for your dog to navigate!
If your dog has arthritis, you want to do everything you can to make them comfortable, especially when they’re at home. While redesigning our homes to suit our dogs’ needs isn’t possible for most of us, you can make a number of simple modifications that will help (and won’t break the bank!).
Modifications for stairs
Stairs aren’t always a bad thing for all dogs with arthritis. In fact, walking UP stairs can potentially be a way to help improve active range of motion, muscle strength, and proprioception (the awareness of the position and movement of the body). However, this is really only true for dogs that are actually able to walk up the stairs vs. jump up them. In other words, small dogs that literally have to jump their body height from one step to the next are putting forth A LOT of effort and this is probably not ideal for them if they have arthritis or back problems. For large breed dogs that can slowly walk up stairs in a controlled manner, this could be therapeutic. However, there is one crucial caveat… the stairs SHOULD BE CARPETED!!!
Walking downstairs can be more problematic, particularly for dogs with elbow and wrist (carpal) arthritis, or shoulder or neck problems. Walking downstairs increases the force on the front limbs, as it takes a lot of control to go down slowly. We recommend that your dog wears a harness with a handle so that you can assist them in slowly walking down stairs and take some of the weight off of their limbs.
HOW YOU CAN HELP YOUR DOG: If your dog has to navigate stairs regularly at home, you can install carpeting or non-slip stair treads to provide more traction. You might find that your dog needs help walking down, and using a harness can help support them and make them feel more secure. Place baby gates at the bottom and the top of the stairs to prevent your dog from using them when they are unsupervised. This is very important and can potentially prevent serious injury.