Why Won't My Dogs Walk Down The Stairs Today?

For the first year of their existence, both dogs refused to walk down stairs, preferring instead to be carried. As we live on the fourth-floor of a walk-up apartment, this meant making at least three trips a day up and down with a dog under each arm, which made opening doors very difficult. They seemed so smugly content, my little dogs, absorbing the bumps and shocks of the trip with bored disinterest, and I would try to cheer myself up by pretending I was a determined little pack pony traveling to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back up again with medicine for sick children, but this only assuaged my resentment — it could not heal it.

Then around the one-year mark they seemingly obtained the skill of stair navigation overnight. I was delighted! Now we could flow down the stairs together like a happy little family of trout. Also I could carry a cup of coffee in one hand and hold both their leashes in the other; this still made opening doors tricky but it’s much easier to balance a cup of coffee on the radiator than a five-pound dog.

But with the years they have grown particular. They can walk downstairs unaided, but they do not always choose to. The following is an ongoing list of reasons they have declined to go down the stairs:

• There is a new pair of shoes on the shoe rack in the landing

• I am carrying a bag of recyclables

• Sheet drying on the railing

• I have taken my coat off

• I have a bigger coat on than usual

• Flowerpot

• Shadow that looks like a shape

• Coat hanging on newel post on the second floor

• I have started walking down the stairs before them

• Haircut (theirs)

• I have waited for them to start walking down the stairs before going myself

• I am wearing a backpack

• They can hear laundry in the basement

• Hallway smells different

• No thank you!

• I opened the apartment door too fast or too slow or at the wrong time

• Don’t want to walk but also don’t want to be carried. Something Else Should Happen

• Welcome mat is in imperceptibly different position from usual

• Welcome mat has been moved back to usual position in order to reassure them

• Ten-pound dog refuses to move out of solidarity with five-pound dog, who has decided not to move

• Ten-pound dog starts going downstairs to pique five-pound dog for deciding not to move, splitting the team and setting off a recovery operation

• Five-pound dog goes downstairs to show off ten-pound dog, who is transfixed by the presence of an empty cardboard box at least twenty feet away from the door, and will not move for anything

• Haircut (mine)

• Sound of coffee grinder in adjoining apartment building

• I am carrying a cup of coffee

• No….

• I am wearing rain boots

• Sound of construction from street below

• I am carrying a tote bag

• It’s fun to give up