You suit your dog up to head outside to take an afternoon walk. As you unlock the door, your pooch jumps up and down and even rolls on the ground. You open the door and your dog takes off and you land head first into the cement driveway, because the leash was wrapped around your ankle. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 86,000 Americans suffer injuries from pet-related falls, and this number is expected to increase with the aging Baby Boomer population.
A serious fall like the one describe above might not have happened to you, but you probably had “almost falls” and trips over your pet. I work part-time at a hospital and sometimes have to go up onto the patient floors. From experience, I know that spinal fractures and head injuries occur in the elderly as a result of slipping on spilled pasta sauce to tumbling outside a grocery store. When you’re bones become weaker, it can take one fall to completely take away your independence and mobility, which is scary.
Dogs and cats enjoy following their owners around the house, but it can become dangerous, especially if you’re walking down your steep flight of steps to the basement. If your pet knew how to stay, you would be able to take your time up and down the steps.
Along with obedience training, there are some other ways to prevent falls.
- Shake a can of pennies when you go up and down the steps to deter your pet from following.
- Temporarily put your dog or cat in a crate before bringing in groceries or moving around furniture.
- Use a harness on your dog and a shorter leash. Make sure the harness has a metal ring at the top so the leash stays up near the dog’s shoulders instead of on the ground.
- Keep a bell on your pet’s collar so you can hear where they are.
Granted accidents happen and the last thing you want to do is fall on your pet, but obedience training can keep your pet patient and less anxious about following your heels.
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Obedience training is also easy, if you take the time. Growing up I used to teach my dogs to follow hand signals, as if I was mute. As you train your pet, use a specific hand sign for each command and then slowly stop using the voice commands. I took about an extra week for each different hand command and the dogs kept it for life.
Great advice Marina! My little Sophie always seems to be hanging around my feet and sometimes I knock here around, but that pesky Zeussie Pussy Cat of mine always loves the challenge and tries to weave through my feet while I’m at the top of the stairs! lol.