Have you ever heard of a dog that's afraid of heights? No? Well, now you have. Meet Rocky.

Rocky, our Havanese, won't got up more than one step on a flight of stairs. Today, Amy and I started him at the bottom of the stairs in the basement--it was a feat just carrying him down the stairs without him clenching and whimpering.

No matter what we did, he wouldn't do more than put his front two feet on the bottom step. We even to resortted to bribery. A piece of turkey wasn't enticing enough to get his hind legs off the floor.

Eventually, I put him on the second step up to get him started, but he only went back down to the bottom. For some reason he'll go down the bottom three steps, but won't do anything if higher.


I put him on each step until he was at the top. He wouldn't even go up two steps from the top. He just froze and wagged his tail when we called his name.

I don't get it. He runs up and down the steps on the deck, but when it comes to stairs inside the house, he flips out. The only explanation we can think of is that he's afraid of heights.

Another thing that's leading us to believe that he's afraid of heights is what he does when we hold him while we're standing up. I'm 6'4, and when I pick him up he holds onto me for dear life like he's looking down from the edge of a cliff. Everyone in my family tall, so when we hold him, we can't be standing up or he'll whine, growl, squirm, or try to hold on with all his might.

A vertically challenged dog in a very vertical world.

Do YOU know of any other dogs like Rocky?