Whether your dog will be allowed on the furniture is an important decision to make as a family. If it bothers anyone in the household for the dog to get on furniture, the dog will be best served by being taught to stay off in the first place. You can add furniture privileges later if the human comes around. Taking away furniture privileges from a dog is much harder on the dog than not allowing furniture access in the first place.

Most people with dogs in the house do allow their dogs on the furniture. If that is your family’s decision, ramp training right from the start is a great idea.

A small dog jumping off a bed or sofa risks injury at any age. Puppies have undeveloped bones, joints and muscles that put them at risk of injury and permanent damage. Dogs with long backs and short legs are easily injured by jumping. Repeated jumping off furniture can cause cumulative orthopedic damage, and geriatric dogs have greater healing difficulty.

Larger dogs can be injured, too, especially if they develop orthopedic problems. Hip dysplasia, knee injuries, back problems, and shoulder issues are some of the conditions that can make either jumping up or jumping down harmful to a dog of any size. Having a ramp in place and the dog taught to use it at all times for furniture access is a great precaution.

A ramp can also spare your back from lifting a sick or injured dog up and down from the furniture. Even if the dog can’t navigate the ramp without your help, sometimes it offers enough support to spare you months of back pain.

The best time to teach a dog to use the ramp is when the dog is well and could get by without the ramp. This removes pain from the training, greatly reduces the risk of fear, and makes the whole process easier and more fun. But if you have not taught your dog to use a ramp and now the dog needs one, join the club—this is the situation most people find themselves in, because few of us do this in advance when we really should! It’s still worth the effort, and your chances of success are good.

Getting to Work

Start with a quality ramp. You’ll probably have it for years and years, and this is the one your dog will learn first and probably always prefer, so get the best one you can. You may be tempted to improvise something, but a manufactured ramp is likely to be more reliable. You can probably also use another ramp of the same model to help your dog in and out of a vehicle.

Try to use a ramp, not steps. Steps may fit some spots that a ramp will not, giving you no choice. Steps may seem more attractive, but they require the dog to jump, though the jumps are smaller, and the dog still experiences some joint stress. A ramp allows smooth ascent and descent without jumping, and can even help build muscle strength.

Start with the ramp flat on the floor so the dog gets used to it under the feet without the slope. Use food to make walking on the ramp rewarding and also to relieve any stress the dog might feel about the strange experience. Keep the sessions short.

If the dog is not comfortable walking on the ramp, you can start by putting the dog’s food dish near the ramp for meals. Gradually, meal by meal, move the dish closer to the ramp, and then barely onto the end of the ramp, and then a little farther down and a little farther down. You can also lay a trail of treats along the ramp. You can put one side of it along a wall to help keep the dog walking on it—or move it away from all walls to relax the dog.

You can play ball with the dog around and across and along the ramp. Take it easy, keep it light, and make it fun. Don’t rush the process. Going slowly, especially in the beginning, works best for the long run. Developing comfort and skill for the long run is the whole point of ramp training.

Moving Up

Once the dog moves comfortably on the ramp placed flat on the floor, you can start working with it sloped. Ideally you would slope it a little, let the dog get used to that, increase the slope and work some more, and gradually bring it to the full angle it needs to be for the furniture where you’ll be using it (or for the vehicle). Possibly your physical situation doesn’t allow for that, and going ahead with the ramp in position at the full slope you’ll be using may work fine as your next step. Whether you are able to include gradual slopes as steps or not, soon you’ll have the ramp set up at the full slope for training.

Use food again, and be prepared to support the dog’s body ascending or descending the ramp. It works better to teach one direction first. After the dog has mastered that direction, teach the other direction. This is less stressful for the dog and probably also easier on the muscles as they get used to new exertion.

Choose the direction to do first according to the most urgent need. Dogs experience more injuries from jumping down, so this is a good direction to start.

Expect to spend a minimum of a week on this stage, and it may take longer. Don’t let the dog bypass the ramp and make the jump. Use a leash, restrict access to the room, and otherwise control the situation so that the ramp becomes the only way your dog accesses the bed. You are trying to help your dog form a solid habit.

Treats help form the habit. At first you’ll be right there guiding and supporting the dog to negotiate the ramp. During this time, associate a word with the ramp—such as “ramp” or “use the ramp.” Then when you are not at the ramp for the dog to use it, you can remind the dog with the word. When the dog uses the ramp on the verbal cue, quickly call the dog to you for a treat to reinforce the behavior.

When guiding a dog up or down a ramp, don’t pull on the collar. It’s tempting to do this, but don’t. Either support the dog with your hands in front of the chest, or put the dog in a non-restrictive harness to use for support. This is NOT the kind of harness that stops a dog from pulling—it is designed specifically FOR pulling, and that is how you are going to use it. Do not use a head halter for this training, either, because that could harm the neck.

You could really use three hands for this—two on the dog and one for the food! But you can make do with the two hands you have, plus perhaps support to the dog from your knees, tummy, elbows—whatever works that is gentle and supportive to the dog. One hand needs to keep a steady supply of little treats flowing to the dog’s mouth. Don’t tease with the food—give it, give it, give it, in a flowing pattern. Focus the dog’s attention on that food. Besides serving as an incentive, the food helps keep the dog from fretting about the ramp.

Final Touches

Once the dog will stand on the ramp and walk on the ramp, move right on to shaping the task so that the dog can do it all independently. To go up the ramp, a dog may need a trotting start. Make sure there is space for this start, and get the dog excited and up to speed for each time starting now, so the dog will have the impulse power to make the ascent without your physical support.

Similarly, at the top the dog will have to step onto the bed or sofa from the ramp when going up, and off the bed or sofa onto the ramp when going down. If you run your ramp alongside the bed instead of at a right angle to it, this step may be sideways instead of straight ahead. A little speed here will help. The dog’s body will do it better without stopping to think about it.

Try to bring your ramp all the way to the level of the furniture, not leaving a big step to be done at this transition point. And before the dog can develop a habit of stopping, add extra encouragement to “hustle” the dog—GENTLY—past the potential stop. Give BIG praise and treats instantly when the dog steps across.

After the dog is confident, quick, and independent about doing one direction on the ramp, teach the other. You don’t need to teach a cue for “up” or “down” because the dog will either be at the top or the bottom. The choice of which direction to go will be automatic. Using the ramp rather than trying to jump does need a cue phrase, though, so you can remind the dog over and over to USE THE RAMP and turn this into a solid habit. Then you can use the same word cue as part of the praise and reward when the dog does it.

If you have multiple dogs, don’t let them play “King of the Bed” (or Queen, as the case may be) at the top of the ramp. You may need to train a spot for any other dog to go to and wait (for a reward, of course!) when a dog is using the ramp. Don’t let them try to knock each other off the ramp or other nonsense. That will intimidate dogs from being willing to use the ramp at all.

Old Reliable

Put the ramp in place and keep it there—or in the case of a vehicle, use it every time. Let the dog learn to trust that the ramp will be there. If during part of the dog’s life you get lazy about enforcing the ramp (try not to do this, but it could happen), the ramp remaining in place may be just what it takes to get a dog back to using it when the need arises.

Teaching a dog to use a ramp is a great investment of your time, and buying the ramp is a great investment of your money. Training in this skill would be a great addition to any puppy class, too.