foxtaz
11-10-2009, 11:20 AM
We have a 9 y/o collie/chow/golden mix with hip displasia and he's slightly cross-eyed (neither seem to prevent him from doing anything). In our apartment our bedroom is lofted and we have a narrow spiral staircase going up. Our dog can go up and down the stairs, i've seem him do it many times, but sometimes he forgets. Lately he's been waking up in the middle of the night. In all cases he is either at the bottom of the stairs wanting to come up, or at the top wanting to go down. Even when we bring him up/down he starts to panic and barks nonstop. Because our house is open, there really is no space to confine him to, and even if we did put him in the bathroom he would bark and have what seems to be a panic attack. This is an otherwise calm, submissive dog and we've never had any problems. But we can't sleep through the night and we can't get him to stop. It's not that he needs to go to the bathroom at night. I'm pretty sure it's because he's panicking about how to get up and down the stairs, esp since he's getting older. We've only lived in this place for a year, but this is a fairly new problem we are having. How do we stop him from barking, or boost his confidence level? Thanks.