So lately my 8mo old pup won't walk across the hardwood dining room floor. He has relegated himself to the carpeted living room. His food & water are in a small area of tile near the front door, but he is extremely hesitant to walk across the wooden floor to join me in the kitchen. Any ideas? He also refuses to go upstairs, and he won't go down a short 5 step flight to go out the back door. Thankfully he doesn't mind the steps on the front porch so at least we can take him in &out that way. Anyone else have similar issues?

Anushka was like that when we first brought her home. Now she gets a running start and slides to her destination on purpose. I hope he gets used to it soon and has as much fun with it as my two do.

Unfortunately the floor isn't new, just Ivan's behavior. We've had him since May. Tried luring him with high value treats and he'll stretch as far as he can but keep his back paws on the carpet.

This happened with our family chihuahua. There is an expansive wooden floor between the bedroom where he slept with my dad's wife and the rest of the house. Suddenly one day he refused to walk on it. We suspect that he maybe had a bad experience with the traction on the floor (took a bad fall) and is now scared to walk on it.

We tried to build up his courage to walk on it again, but he still has issues after almost three years. So we've helped by adding little 'islands' on the floor, such as mats and rugs (table place-mats work too) so that the walking distance between each 'island' is a less stressful trek than the entire floor. He's shown improvement, but it's very rare that he'll make the full walk across the floor with out it.

Try the place-mats and see if that helps. You can maybe put several that are a foot apart paired with treats on each one to encourage him to walk on them. Then every couple of weeks or so, remove a place-mat and space them further apart (with treats!). Each time, observe if he starts to regress - if so, move back to the old placement for a bit and try again later (possibly with a little less distance added than before)

This is a healing process so it may take a long time to recover (if ever, fully). But, lots of praise and reinforcement for each trek will be encouraging. Good luck! =)

Koda fell once going up the steps when he was about 7 months.. So he stopped walkig up them.. Mind you he sleeps and spends most of the time in the basement with me, and weighed 50lbs i had to lug him up the steps everytime we went up stairs lol. He is ok with them now. Just took some high value treats and so time to reteach him. Just keep trying slowly. What i would do is try to lure him with treat. And if he just toucjes the hardwood floor with anybpart of his body reward it. Then few time later wait till he gets a little farth and reward. And keep doing thT. It could be a long process just br patient

Thank you all for the suggestions. I bought two carpet runners today with non-skid backs to see if that would help. So far, no progress but I'm holding out hope. He really thought about it when I tried luring him with a bully stick, but still wouldn't get his back feet off the living room carpet.