Unexplained pet tricks: walking up the stairs backwards

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Almost exactly a year ago, we adopted a dog (about 9 months old at the time). He’s great and dog-like in so many respects (loves fetch, swimming and inappropriate licking) - but there is this one trait that is just odd.

He walks up the stairs backwards.

Initially, he was hesitant to work stairs, as all dogs tend to be. We got him over that and he has no problems going down the stairs. When we come back up stairs, he’ll walk up the first 3-4 normally, then turn around and finish the staircase backwards.

A few weeks ago, I thought I might try and train him out of it. I’d get him downstairs, and walk with him up the stairs, keeping him facing up, and at the top I’d praise him and give him a treat. Rinse and repeat.
This works 2-3 times, and then he sits his butt down on the cellar floor, and then refuses to budge. Poor guy starts shaking. Since walking up the stairs backwards isn’t really hurting anything, I decided to let it be. Thats just how he is.

Now, here’s the funny part. Our neighbor has irish wolfhounds, and a few times a month my wife and I go over there, bring the dog and sip wine and chat while the dogs bark, play and do doggie things. The male irish wolfhound will occasionally try to exert his dominance by, ahem, trying to mount our dog from behind. Usually this process is interrupted by someone saying ‘no!’ and distracting the wolfhound and removing him from the situation. Either that, or our dog realizes whats going on and is able to squirm away (the wolfhound fits over our dog like a russian nesting doll, ferchrissakes).

Now imagine our dog walking up the stairs… backwards… with the irish wolfhound at the ready at the top of the stairs. :smiley:

That there is funny, I dont care who you are.

Anyone else ever hear of a dog walking up the stairs backwards? Only reason I can think is that the stairs have no back, so you can see through them. Perhaps after getting a couple feet in elevation, the dog is scared of going higher because he can see how far he’ll fall?

Anyone else have any unexplained pet tricks to share?

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Nope, but yours sure gave me a smile.

3

My sister used to have a poodle who’d pee standing on two legs.

His two front legs.

Not leaning against anything, either—he’d balance in the middle of the room like that. Or walk while he was doing it. In fact, one of his favorite tricks was to circle around an electric heater—while it was turned on, of course. But luckily, it didn’t have exposed coils—peeing on it, while doing that handstand. I personally think it was some kind of bizarre, primitive form of idol worship.

He was also old when we got him, so we have no idea when he learned to do it—we sure as hell didn’t teach him to do that, or encourage it. And he couldn’t have learned it from any other dog of ours—even if any did it (which they didn’t), he was totally blind from cataracts when he arrived. Blind, and frankly, not very well adapted to it. Even compared to other dogs I’ve known who went blind in their old age, much less the few who were born blind. Imagine Mister Magoo, only he realized what was wrong with his vision, and spent a lot of time shrieking “THEY TOOK MY EEEEEYES! I CAN’T SEEEEE! I’M LOOOOOST!” That was what Blindy was like.

And yes, that was his name. It wasn’t the first choice, and we all felt (and still feel) terrible about it, but it stuck.

4

Nah. Knew a blind dog named “Bang” once. Currently own a three-legged cat named “Tripod”. Doesn’t hurt a thing.

5

ok seriously why are there no links to youtube vids in this thread?
I had a cat once that would run on its hind legs with its front legs up over its head…freaking hysterical to watch.

6

I knew a three legged dog that would piroutte up onto it’s front legs to pee. He couldn’t hold the pose for very long so it was pirouette squirt, piroutte squirt all around the lamppost.

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Here’s a dog peeing while standing on his/her front legs. It seems to be not uncommon, in that I’ve seen this type of video a number of times. I must admit I used to disregard them as hoaxes.

8

This isn’t uncommon for greyhounds to do. If you look up ‘greyhound stairs’ on YouTube you’ll get a whole collection of videos showing it.