5 month old bulldog refusal to walk

Question
Hi there

I have a 5 month old pedigreed English bulldog bitch. We got her when she was 10 week old. We live in flat on the top floor of a two storey building - so in order to housetrain her we have to take her up and down 3 flights of stairs. We carried her up and down the stairs until quite recently as she has gotten too heavy to carry.There are 2 issues that I am having with walking -
1. She quite happily walks down the stairs but refuses to walk back up once she has done her business. She just plants her feet and this morning (I feel incredibly bad for this) but I had no choice but to drag her up - which I think could have done more harm than good. I would really appreciate if you could give me advice on how to handle this.
2. The secondpart of the problem is that when we take her out for a walk she walks for a little while and then again plants her feet and refuses to walk? She may start walking again and then stops again. It's this stop - start walkiing that takes us a huge amount of time to get nowhere! I have tried treats toys, jumping up and down, calling in a high pitched voice, everything short of getting behind her and pushing!! We dont take her on long walks and playtime is taking her to a large piece of secured land about 100m away from my home where she can run and play freely with her ball - but this is becoming non - existant as I cant even get her to walk that far. I am at the end of my tether and any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks

Answer
Dogs are extremely nearsighted.  Your dog appears to be afraid of the ascending stairs, and forcing her up them today pretty much destroyed any tendency she may have had for "following" the leash!

When a dog flat out refuses to engage in a behavior, that is the "freeze" response of fear.  Her refusal to accept treats is a further demonstration of her fear.  Unfortunately, your carrying her up and down the stairs until she obtained five months of age (although motivated by your kindness) has almost slammed the door of opportunity on your ability to habituate her past her fear.

Replace the neck collar with a body harness.  This will totally extinguish any fear she has of the effect of a leash pull on her collar (and hopefully YOU ARE NOT USING A CHAIN CHOKER!)  Start with going DOWN the stairs.  As she progresses freely forward, toss a special treat in her path every few seconds (a small tidbit of cheese).  Do this ONLY if she proceeds FREELY forward.  When you reach the street, continue with this (tossing a tidbit every few feet she progresses forward.)  If she stops and refuses to go further, go to the end of the leash and turn your back on her.  You are somehow contributing heavily to this problem but I can't see that from here.  Going to the end of the leash and turning your back for a few seconds (to a count of ten) will totally remove any contribution you have made.  Turn back to the dog and go in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION from the original direction.  She should freely go in that direction.  If she stops again and refuses to go forward, repeat your own behavior (end of leash, turn back) and start over.  Do not forget to offer a tiny tidbit of food reward for every few steps forward she makes.  When she is going forward she is most likely not fearful and should accept the food reward.  If you repeat this approach OVER AND OVER, no matter how long it takes (days), you will successfully change the dog's emotional response and intention.

Regarding the steps: going up two flights of stairs when one cannot SEE anything but the (apparent) endless incline is intimidating.  I'm assuming this dog has been thoroughly evaluated for any cardiological defect and is not suffering from abnormality of any kind.  Your task is to spend as much time as is required to get the dog to learn that going UP the stairs is highly rewarding.  You can attempt to condition her to the steps by purchasing indoor steps designed to allow small breed dogs to get up on the couch or bed (find them on the internet.)  If the dog will freely go up THREE such steps to obtain a huge food reward, she will quickly learn that she CAN do it and you can then attempt to transfer this exercise to the actual staircase.  I'm assuming you're in Britain.  A former colleague of mine began the Association of Pet Behaviour Counselors (Victoria Stilwel was, I think, his protege at the time) and I believe they have an office in London.  If you are unable to manage this stair climbing problem alone, I strongly suggest you locate them and make an appointment.