So I think my girl Kuky (Peki/Terrier) mix is showing more signs of her age. She is almost 15.5 years old and lately, she has been falling down the stairs more often then I would want her to.  And it's always at the time when I don't watch her.  She likes hanging on the top of the stairs looking down and she won't go down unless she wants to.  The first time this happened, she got super excited trying to run up the stairs and slipped on one of the steps and fell all the way down. Luckily it is all carpet but hearing the "thud thud..." scares the heck out of me.  This past week, she has fell down twice. I was in the kitchen or in the living room when this happened.  I checked on her and she seems to be fine. She walks normal and all excited after that. Even during our walks, sometimes she sprints in front of Kota like nothing happened. Since I have moved in with my bf (6 months), she have probably fallen down the stairs at least 6 times already. This was the only time that it happened so close to one another. Unfortunately we can't move to another place yet. California housing is way expensive.

I am concern that this might be her old age and with her arthritis.    I am keeping an eye out on her to make sure no other symptoms. She doesn't seem to be in pain.  And most of the time, I try to carry her up and down the stairs but she is one independent girl. She will go up and down whenever she feels like it.

There have only been one time where she had an accident that she didn't realize that she had. That was about 2 months ago. No accidents since then. She was just lying on the floor and once she got up, my bf noticed a wet spot which was really odd that it even happened. She is pad trained and also goes out walking to relieve herself.

I don't want to think too much into it but I know I have to prepare myself especially she is already 15 years old.

ya, it's rough when they start getting older ... have you thought about putting gates (a gate?) up so that she can't go up or down without you around? I'd be concerned if one of mine took to falling without reason.

aljones wrote:

have you thought about putting gates (a gate?) up so that she can't go up or down without you around?

I might have to get those hamster gates. She is small enough where she won't jump over that. Unfortunately our condo apartment is pretty small. Her pee pads are on the top of the stairs and her food is down stairs. Usually she hangs around me unless she wants to eat or needs to go to the bathroom. I work in the 2nd bedroom that is upstairs. I don't want to move the food upstairs for habit.

So many dilemmas. She seems to be fine when she goes on her own when I am upstairs. It's more when I am down stairs where she happens to roll down the stairs often.

Ugh, I accidently hit "bad advice" on my phone. I'll get someone to reverse it. Sorry about that!

I hot the good advices for you...

Thank you so much, Amy! I was trying to hit a gnat flying around me and boom, I got the "your vote has been cast" message I'll mssg Jane back and tell her she doesn't have to reverse it for me, thank you again

As Al said, getting old sucks. My dad's bird dog fell often up and down the stairs when she got older, not because she was hurting but because she was getting weak in the hind end and she didn't see well so she would miss steps. Might be worth checking eyes and hips. If it's just a weakness that is happening you may be able to change up some of your exercises to focus on building strength. Stiffness happening in the rear legs can also mean she isn't bending them enough when going down and she's essentially bouncing her butt over her head. Do you give any joint supplements?

@twisterII thanks for letting me know that. I know her hind leg is shaky most of the time when she is just standing still. She is taking arthritis medications for her joints. Yesterday I blocked the 2nd floor so that she doesn't go down stairs to try to eat. But this morning, we went for our walk and as soon as we got home, she ran upstairs right away. I will need to get the gates probably this weekend so that I don't need to worry about her falling.

So our girl Sierra will be 15 in March. She had 2 new knees put in this past yr. After she got stronger we let her walk up the stairs for strength building (carpet) but we do not let her go down them, we tried at the start and she just would "miss" a step and scare the shit out of me, we have a landing so never that far but putting in new knees again is not something i want to do. We carry her down the steps, which sucks when she has to pee in the middle of the night as i end up carrying her down and then back up since it is dark. I even built her her a ramp to get down the 2 front steps out the front door. she does ok if it is just one step down to a large platform but not multiple steps.
Sounds like you are going in the right direction with blocking her off from the steps, she will get used to it. we keep the steps blocked at the bottom to keep them from going up till bed time and then blocked up stairs till we go down in the morning.
anything you can do to limit her from getting hurt at this age is a plus.
do you free feed her? maybe keep food on both levels, maybe just do half in each one so you are not feeding her more.

@jbealer OMG that sounds very scary especially Sierra is much bigger then my girl Kuky. Kuky is only about 13 lbs.  Ever since we have Kota, we have schedule feeding meals now. But both of them usually don't eat their whole meals at the same time. So I usually leave both their untouch meals for the next morning and would always noticed that Kuky's bowl is gone in the morning. Which means she ate in the middle of the night.  I started putting their food away now so that they eat at specific times. Unfortunately leaving half of her food on the top level might not be a good idea because I don't want Kota to get into her food. Which she had multiple times even though they are the same food. lol.

Kuky will just need to get use to eating when we are down stairs.

But that is very smart...I will have have to just have them use to being in the same area as me so that Kuky won't have an issue falling.

Thank you so much all!

P.S. Yay, I get to finally mark good advice now! It use to not be there probably because I am such a newbie!