I know a motivated cat can climb even a vertical ladder: I have seen one do so.
Has anyone seen a dog do the same though?
I imagine this might be a trick some old-time circus trainers might have attempted?
Pretty sure I saw poodles do that in circuses past. And some agility training has the climbing of pretty steep “runged” ramps.
And a quick google shows plenty of vids of just what you seek.
Tons of online videos indicate that the answer is “yes,” though I’m not sure how many of them show a dog climbing a ladder that’s 100% “vertical.”
Yeah. Had a framer buddy in another life and his dog climbed a ladder. Don’t know about going down though.
I have two active healthy dogs. Neither are interested in climbing the steep stairs to my loft/office. Think stairs you would find on a warship.
I don’t particular like the stairs either.
My very determined Staffy could, in her youth, climb an 8 foot welded wire fence (I have photos somewhere). I don’t think a ladder would have presented any problem!
Our husky could if it was leaning some.
When I was a teen we had an enclosure on the side of the house for our dog. Basically a six foot tall chain-link fence enclosing an area of maybe 15’ x 15’.
Our dog (German Shepherd…maybe 85 pounds) HATED it. I never saw her method of escape but many times we would come home and she’d be out of the enclosure and curled up by the front door.
Given we never found a hole to go under and the gate was still latched the only possible way out was to climb over the fence. GSDs are not the best jumpers so I seriously doubt she leapt over a 6’ tall fence. The only possible way I can think of is she climbed (with a jumping head-start…maybe).
But again…I never saw her do it. I only know she managed somehow.
FTR: We got that she hated it and was an escape artist so we didn’t bother making her use it after maybe a dozen tries…give-or-take.
I never saw a dog climb a ladder but we used to have a goat that could. She figured out the hay loft was where the food was, spent about a day figuring out the ladder bolted to the wall and that was that.
Goats are weirdly good climbers:
(you can see more goats on this wall in the distance)
A step ladder or leaning ladder would be pretty easy for some dogs. Our little pain in the butt Jack Russel could climb attic stairs that were essentially a ladder. So a step ladder with decent tread width would be easy for him to hop up one step at a time. I had dogs that could climb wire fences. I’m sure with proper motivation, something like bacon, they would learn to climb a ladder. For a vertical tubular rung ladder a lot of dogs would face difficulties, but with enough bacon at the top they would overcome those.
I had a Rat terrier that could climb a ladder and most anything semi-vertical to vertical. Trees, fences, cabinets. One foot hold and she was up. Got her in tons of trouble. She was a good board walker too. Wasn’t afraid of falling that we could see.
Mr.Wrekkers Carolina cur can climb the loft ladder into the top of the barn. His problem is getting down. So he howls when he gets up there and wants down.
Not sure why it slipped my mind when I replied earlier. We used to vacation at a lake house. In the lake was a raft with a vertical boat ladder attached. We went there over many years, spanning 4 goldens. The dogs loved swimming with us, and eventually, we’d manage to get them up on the raft. It usually required some amount of pushing from below.
One day we let Daisy out in the morning, and later noticed that she was on the raft. So one had helped her, so she must have figured it out after we showed her. Thereafter, she would swim out to the raft with a tenis ball in her mouth, climb onto the raft, drop the ball into the water, jump in and get it, and repeat about 90 jillion times.
She was a good dog.
My Labrador/very mixed beed has been seen climbing over 4m up a tree… she chases squirrels. I have no idea how she makes it, I rely on having opposable thumbs and having arms and legs about twice her size.
But here, an example of a beagle clearing a fence.
I had a female labrador who would use the ladder in a swimming pool to climb out when she was done swimming (err, when we told her she was done swimming).
She also appeared on the roof of my breezeway with me while i was repairing a shingle, 10 feet off the ground. I didn’t see her climb the ladder I had used, but I presume she didn’t jump up there. I had to stand on the ladder and put her across my arms, one arm under her chest and the other under her haunches, sliding them down with her riding down. Standard extension ladder at the proper 75 degree climbing angle.
Hallie was an awesome dog.
I’ve seen some dogs who would learn to levitate, if bacon was the motivator.
When I was a kid we had a little brown dog named Frisky who would not only climb a stepladder, he’d jump off it into my arms or my mother’s when we called him. The first half of the trick he learned on his own without any coaching–I went outside one day and there was little Frisky halfway up the stepladder we’d been using to groom a tree in the backyard. I’ve no idea what inspired him to try to climb the ladder in the first place, but after a day or two he was doing it because we laughed when he did, and petted and praised him for it.
The Popovich Pet Circus features any number of dogs who can climb ladders. Quite a fun show.
Yes, I’m sure dogs can climb an inclined stepladder with flat rungs fairly easily.
But a vertical tubular rung ladder is what I’m curious about. I’ve seen a cat climb one, but never a dog?