Bathmophobia

It's not what you think... it is fear of stairs (not fear of baths!) and my boy has it bad! This morning at the lab he was having a little trouble going up the 4 stairs needed to get into my office which was funny at first because he eventually did it but wow did we have an upsetting time later on in the stairwell! Yikes!


It started when we went to the 3rd floor on the elevator, he was a little puzzled by it but I am hoping to expose him to lots of outside world things so when we went to use the elevator a 2nd time he was definitely upset about getting on and when we went to go back down he would not go in so I figured we would go down using the stairs since his problem before was only going up not down. Well, we go into the stairwell and he goes down one flight to the landing and won't go up or down to get to the door to get out of the stairwell. I tried for a good 10 minutes, even going to fetch Darwin to see if he would follow Darwin but no dice! He was crying and stressed, it was awful! Fortunately Ken came to help and we tried for another good (actually bad) 10 minutes with no luck- though Ken got a little closer than I did. Finally Ken picked him up and carried him up the stairs. Phew! Then I had to leave him with Ken while I went down to my office to get his leash so I could try the elevator. With the leash, cream cheese, Ken & Darwin we managed to get him into the elevator pretty quickly with only a little hesitation. That was a very stressful half hour I do not want to repeat! We are going to have to work on the stair thing a bit more gradually and now I will at least have the leash with me- I really think that made him a little more confident. I could not pull him by the collar but with the leash it seems like momentum so he just goes. His mom is slowly figuring all of this out!
Just before this traumatic experience we had loads of fun with Darwin on the beach though (pic)! Moose is the one in front with the Red Collar and Darwin is in the background. He has slept all day since we got home!