Getting dog into the car boot

yaya*

Hi all,

Looking for some advice for my mum about getting our old Lab into the boot of the car. She's had arthrits for a few years now and so jumping into the boot is a thing of the past - until recently my mum has been lifting her in and out, but at 30kg, that's getting harder and harder.
We have bought a ramp but not only is that nearly as heavy as she is, she's also terrified of EVERYTHING and there's no way we can get her to walk up that ramp.
My mum loves taking her on her daily walk in a park about ten mins drive from us but we need to figure out a way to get her in to the car without causing my mum long-term back damage.

Any ideas boardsies?

Yaya*

CreedonsDogDayc

http://www.taylorsgardenbuildings.co.uk/store/customer/product.php?productid=21919

tk123

We have a ramp for my golden retriever - it's a plastic Trixie/Solvit one that was around €90-100 but it's really light. I got a cheaper wooden one from ebay before this one and it was a nightmare - just too heavy for me and didn't sit right on the car so I gave up on it and bought a more expesive one. To get my GR (he would have been about 14 months when we got it) to use it I used his clicker, dropped treats on the ramp and rewarded him every time he put a paw on the ramp. So we went from one paw to two paws to me leading him across it over a few sessions. Once he was happily walking across it we brought it out the car - he wasn't sure at first but with patience, praise and high value treats land he got used to it to going up and down it. Now he's waits at the back of the car for his ramp to be taken out :pac:

Before I got the ramp I was thinking of making something like the stairs on this page but thought they might take up too much space - I drive a jeep/suv so the stairs would have needed to be quite high.