Trinkett is a 7-year-old ex-racing greyhound. Has spent most of her life on the track and breeding farm, but has settled into house-pet life reasonably well. There is one thing that I am pondering with her... she won't get on the furniture. In fact, she doesn't even seem to realize that furniture is something that she could get on if she wanted to. I can see many of you saying "And the problem with that is?" She wants to be near me, which means that she wants to lay down by the sofa in the living room. And greyhounds are not small dogs! So in order to be near me when I am on the sofa, I can't have a coffee table in the living room. And that is being somewhat problematic for me, because a coffe table is handy for holding things. If I could get her to come up on the sofa, then I would be able to have the coffee table again. Plus, I miss having a dog snuggled up by me. And I am not concerned about her getting dominance issues... she doesn't seem to have an ounce of dominance in her. And it would be strictly the sofa that she got to go on, since the bed is way too high for her to get into.

So... good idea or not? And if it is a good idea, how do I get her to understand that it's OK to come up on the sofa? She will occasionally sniff the sofa cushion (especially if I have just gotten through eating something), but has never so much as touched a paw to one. She will get on the back seat of the car with no problems, if that helps. Or do I say that she's happy being on the floor, and just figure out some way of getting a smaller table into the room to put things on?

Maybe you could try feeding her on the couch and making it a real treat to be up there with you. You might have to lift the dog up to get her used to it. If she panics or starts to shake, don't force the issue, but use little treats to get her closer and closer so that she'll come up to get the goodies. She may have been trained to stay off things like that, so you might have to deal with retraining.

If you don't mind animals on the furniture, then nothing is wrong with it. If she does get used to getting on furniture, you might have an issue of all furniture being considered as fair game for the dogs enjoyment. The only other potential downside that I can think of would be hair from shedding or damage from claws, but those negatives never stopped me from enjoying my dogs on the couch with me!

For most people having the dog on the furniture is a matter of personal taste. If she spent time in a foster home, she may have been trained to stay off the furniture. At 7 years old, she will be slow to accept new things. It should be a matter of getting her up there the first time and then rewarding her with praise and affection. Perhaps move the table out of the way and sit on the floor giving her her favorite, butt rubs, belly rubs, ear scratches, whatever she loves best. Then slide up on the sofa, and coax her up there and continue. If she just gets her front feet up there at first, that is a big step.

I'm wondering if putting the sofa cushion on the floor for a while, so that she can lay on it down there, and then moving it up to the sofa would work? The problem with trying to lure her up is that the first thing that she does when getting petted, treats, etc. is lay down, so it is hard to use that to bring her up on something.