My Pet World: How to help a recently injured dog up the stairs

Q: I have a 2-year-old pit bull mix named Twinkie. Recently she will not go upstairs in my house or outside when she used to have no problem in the past. It's been a problem for almost three months now. She did suffer a mild sprain of her back leg, but there was no fracture as per the veterinarian that I went to. She is back to running around in the yard and being very affectionate but just stops at the base of the stairs when I encourage her to come up. Do you have any helpful suggestions? -- Cathy Duffy, Chicago, IL

A: Animals very rarely accept our guarantees or assurances that a situation is safe when their instincts tell them otherwise. Your dog felt at the time that the stairs were not a safe place to be when she hurt her leg, and she will continue to think that until her firsthand experience proves otherwise.

So your job is to allow her to experience going up the stairs without drama and with her in control of the situation. The best way to do this is to grab a handful of treats and allow the dog to see you holding the treats. Then calmly walk up the stairs leaving a treat on each step. While you are doing this say nothing to the dog, just go up the stairs and ignore her.

What will likely happen is she will suck up as many treats as she can reach without going up the stairs, but the lure will be too much for her. On her own, she will decide that her fears are unfounded and she will zoom right up the stairs after the rest of the treats without hesitation. The key here is to ignore her -- if you start coaching her then her radar will go up and she will think that you're planning to force her to do what you want.

Q: My elderly father just passed away two months ago and his companion was a Maltese that he has had for the last 10 years. My dad and his dog have lived with us now for six years and we have two other dogs, but dad's dog never really socialized well with them. The dog seems to be doing fine in the respect of eating and going outside. However, she will stare at the chair that my dad used to stay in most of the day for an hour at a time and then slowly walk away and go to sleep in her bed. She does not whine or do anything but sit there and stare. We tried to move the chair out of the room but she found it and continues to stare at it. We really do not know what she is seeing or what is going on, but we are all feeling a bit odd by it. Should we just move the chair out of our house? Dad's bed is still upstairs in her room but the dog does not bother to go in that room at all, so we are at a loss here and wondered what you thought? -- Pat Monroe, Orlando, FL

A: I am really not qualified to say what is going on here, why it is happening or what you should do about the situation. But you asked my opinion and that is what I shall give to you.

It is a scientific fact that animals can grieve, and just as in humans grieve, it is an individual and personal issue -- not everyone does it the same way. It also is a scientific fact that animals can see, smell, hear and sense things we humans cannot -- even such abstract issues as magnetic fields and other parts of the natural world that science had no concept of for a long time.

People can read into this situation however they want, as should you since you are there and I am not. I can offer you this: You say your late father's dog is eating and acting just fine; the only issue is the staring at the chair. Well, she is not bothering anyone and is not chewing up the house or anything like that, so if this is her way of grieving then I would allow her to do so as long as she wants.

If she was not eating or in some other way was compromising her health then I would say that you should take a stronger hand in things, but otherwise just leave well enough alone here.

Q: It seems like every week birds hit our windows in our office building and it bothers me to see those pretty little songbirds lying dead on the sidewalk as I go to work. This year the management put black bird silhouettes that are supposed to scare the birds away from the glass but they obviously do not work. Is there anything that you can suggest? -- Alan Robertson, Allentown, PA

A: This is a big issue nowadays -- so many poor birds that fly through our urban and suburban areas die by crashing into windows before they even start their journey. We have altered their environment with so many obstacles that are alien to them in the last 100 years.

A few silhouettes on a big window are really not going to do very much. The birds are flying so fast that it is hard for them to comprehend that those cutouts mean anything.

Some sort of netting or sheets to reduce visibility or reflection work best. The Cornell Institute of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y., has studied this issue in great detail and can offer solutions that space does not allow me to print here. You can access this information at allaboutbirds.org.

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(Marc Morrone has kept almost every kind of animal as a pet for the last half-century and he is happy to share his knowledge with others. Although he cannot answer every question, he will publish many of those that have a general interest. You can contact him at petxperts2@aol.com; please include your.)