Looking for Ideas on How to Blockade a Spiral Stairway

[LesleyandStrudel]

Hello everyone!  I'd forgotten how much fun having a puppy can be ... and I'd also forgotten how many ways a puppy can get himself in trouble!  My cozy little apartment has the living room and kitchen downstairs, then we have one of those black metal spiral stairways going up to the bedroom & bath.  My next door neighbor, who also has a dachsie, blockades hers with a plastic stair stepper, and that works great for her dog.  She lent me part of it, and guess who figured out how to scale the thing!  One day I ran upstairs for a quick errand, after carefully blocking the bottom step with the stair stepper.  As I headed down, I  found the little twit climbed three quarters of the way up the stairs!  I'm reasonably sure he'd only try this when he knows I'm upstairs and he wants to join me, but it would be so easy for him to slip between the steps! I was wondering if anyone has ever dealt with this problem, and what you did to keep your puppy safe! 

[Leslie]

man, You have no choice but to blockade this entire thing.  Try giant pieces of cardboard?  If you are handy maybe some MDF. (Medium density fiberboard.)  He's a doxie baby and he will attempt it again the little pooper. 

Since my kids are not super rowdy, even a baby gate that's propped across the doorway works for us.  I was considering though, a nice 30" planation shutter for the bedroom doorway to keep circulation and keep them off the big bed.

Good luck with cute lil baby dog.  Glad to see you back on baord!

[Marcia from MI]

Could you use a piece of plexi-glass attached to the  bottom railing with clamps or something on that order.   I used that to block the back gate when Eddie the Escape artist used to try to escape.

[LesleyandStrudel]

Good ideas!  I think if I manage to block the sides of the bottom step, that's as high as he can scale. Maybe the second step, for good measure!  If I figure out a way to accomplish that (I was even considering a curtain like setup, if I can get it tight on both the top and bottom ... boards or cardboard would work better, though), then a normal baby gate blocking the front approach should do the trick. Turning the stair stepper backwards also seemed to work!  I  noticed a baby pen that is made up of adjustable panels, so that I could enclose the whole bottom of the stairway -- IF the pen is large enough!  That would mess up the cats, who's litter box is under the stairs (and oh yes, maybe relocating the litter box to somewhere out of bounds would eliminate the temptation for un-tasty snacks!) Boy, I never even thought about these things with Strudel - she climbed the stairs with no trouble at all, and would protest when I carried her, and she was a notorious litter box raider ... echk!  Some of her ways ... well, she WAS courageous to the point of rashness, for absolute sure!  I still miss her to a ridiculous degree (she really WAS my best friend!), but Pfeffie is already turning in to such a dear little gentleman, and I'm SO proud of how fast he's learning how to be a spoiled house pet!  (Well, I have to admit to a few instances of tough love -- biting during play is never gonna work, nor is peeing on Mommy's coat!)

[Marcia from MI]

(Well, I have to admit to a few instances of tough love -- biting during play is never gonna work, nor is peeing on Mommy's coat!)

When I worked rescue one of the workers told us that if you growled when you said NO it would sound like a mother dog reprimanding her pup.  A friend fostered a litter of 8 puppies and lost her voice doing it, but it did work.

Eddie says Kitty Rocca yum.

[Dianne]

You could X-pen the bottom of the stairway.  That way it is easy to move and doesn't necessarily prevent the kitty from getting  to her box (although it sounds like you need to find a new place for it)!  And, an X-pen would be useful if you need to confine him of take him somewhere.  Very portable and easy to use!