Dogability Ramp v2.0

Back in January I built a little handicap ramp for my elderly doggo, Shelly, who has bad back knees.  She's in great health in general, it's just that she's the dog equivalent of 96 years old.  She couldn't step down from the threshhold onto the patio at the old house, and would often just fall out the door to the outside.  The ramp made all the difference in the world, and it worked great...right up until we moved house. So, over the weekend, I built her a new one.

The plan - in which about half of the measurements are off, but I fixed them as I worked. 

Here's the old ramp.  It was covered with an Ikea bathmat for traction (which constantly slipped off and had to be adjusted daily). The structure, if you want to call it that, was just a leftover piece of plywood screwed to a 2x4 stack of 2" sticks.  It wasn't stable anymore, and without a flat landing, and because of the very steep slope,  the front of the dog was headed downhill before the back of the dog even got out of the door - which caused her to fall and smack her face on the ground. :( 

The new ramp:

• is an inch taller
• has a complete frame with internal support to prevent the ramp sagging
• has a 14" landing to step out onto before going down (for dogs' and humans' safety), and 
• has a non-skid coating all the way around for traction for the dogs and to prevent the ramp sliding on the patio surface

LR-:  parts cut out;  frame assembled; frame clad with plywood

After hemming and hawing over how best to make this new ramp grippy so Shelly won't slide down it (stair tread safety tape, another math mat, adhesive non-skid shower floor stickers, etc.), I opted to coat the entire thing in Rustoleum's Truck Bed Liner spray.  It's solid stuff, and two coats of it were enough to pretty effectively rubberize the entire surface, making it slip-proof.  It was also much cheaper than any other options, at $7 per can.

Turns out, even grippy truck bed liner spray was too slippery for Ol' Sheller...or maybe it's just that she just doesn't like new things.  Either way, neither she nor Daisy would walk on the ramp AT ALL. Shelly felt trapped outdoors, and Daisy just jumped over the whole thing, which was pretty impressive, I have to say.

So, I picked up a gigantic, $20 shop rug from Blowe's, and cut a piece from it to the shape of the ramp.  Now both dogs use it as if it'd always been there. Whew!

Sure, the thing is huge, dark, and kind of an eyesore. But it helps my dog. And it's awfully comfortable to walk up and down for me, too.  I'm no spring chicken myself, you know? The landing at the top makes a HUGE difference in walkability and comfort.  I wish I'd thought to make it wider, as wide as the door, but I was working with the size plywood I had.   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

Incidentally, this is both (a) what I looked like while I was building and spraying the ramp; and (b) how I looked when my new duplex-neighbors rolled up to their new place for the first time.  HR! R'M LRRA!!  *gloved handshake* 

That's all, folks! 

♥♥ Dog of my heart ♥♥

Accessibility Design for Doggos

The time has come, my furry friend, to put you up on blocks.

No wait, scratch that.

This is Shelly! 

Shelly is 15 (approx. 90 in human years, for a doge her weight/age/breed).  She old.  And her poor joints - especially her knees - have been aching her something fierce this past year.  At her vet's urging, she went on a diet about a month ago, and began taking supplements for her joints.  It's helped quite a bit already; but the step down from the back door into the patio area was still really difficult for her.  Watching my girl try and try and try, and shake, and stumble, was just too heart-breaking!

So, a few weeks ago, I rounded up some scraps from the garage - a leftover shelf board from the built-in shelf project and a couple of short 2x4s - and made my poor doge a handicap ramp.  It's a very simple design - just a board on top of a 2x4 with another 2x4 under the middle for support.  Here's my very detailed scale diagram, which I made during the planning process:

Both of the doges were vv heckin confuse:

"wut"

After many minutes of tentative tries, first with one foot, then another - and Daisy finally just leaping over the thing - I realized that they were confused because the smooth wood was too slippery.  I dropped a soft bathmat onto it (with a non-slip backing), and that solved the problem.  It took Shelldog a couple of days to get used to it; now she trots up and down the ramp with ease.

bathmat is...bathmatty.

Although this works great for the dogs, I've since discovered that the ramp is WAY too short to be safe for humans.  The angle is far too steep.  For now, it works for Shelly, and that was the point.  Sometime before the warmer weather shows up, though, I'd like to replace the ramp with a much longer one, with a proper non-skid surface on top, so that neither Shelly nor I ends up on our face on the ground.

More soon!