An occupational therapist has built a DIY stairlift to help her three elderly rescue dogs tackle the stairs.
Elderly pugs George, 13, and Bodhi, 10, plus Boston terrier Sam, 10, can now travel in style and comfort at their home in New Orleans.
Sonya Karimi, 31, decided to build the mini lift two months ago when she adopted Bodhi, who had a torn knee ligament.
Video footage shows the clever motorised lift in action, carrying the pooches up and down the stairs.
Sonya Karimi, 31, from New Orleans, built a wooden stairlift to help her elderly rescue pugs George, 13 (centre right), Bodhi, 10 (left), and Boston terrier Sam, 10 (right). But her four-year-old pug Emery (centre left) also enjoys using the stairlift with her older friends
The dogs can queue for the clever motorised stairlift using an easily accessible ramp at the bottom of the stairs (left) before being safely carried upstairs in a enclosed cart (right)
One of the pugs walks into the little wooden box and the hatch is shut behind the pooch, keeping it from jumping out halfway through the journey.
After the button on the remote control is clicked, the dog sets off down the stairs, looking very calm as it moves slowly down the wooden ramp.
As the cart comes to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, the dog easily steps out of the box on to an easily accessible connecting ramp.
Ms Karimi’s younger pug Emery, four, also enjoys travelling in the stairlift, even though the contraption was designed for his older friends.
Sonya, who owns the four rescue dogs with her fiance Zach, said: ‘Our most recent foster dogs Bodhi and Sam grew up together and are both around ten years old.
‘I noticed Bodhi was walking strange after we adopted him and found out he had a torn ACL. The surgery was going to cost around $3,000 (£2,700) and we didn’t know if he would do well under anaesthesia.
Sonya Karimi, who owns the four rescue dogs with her fiance Zach (both pictured above), decided to build the stairlift for her dogs when she adopted Bodhi, who had a torn knee ligament, two months ago
All four of the dogs love using the stairlift and Sonya is planning to paint the stairlift like the famous New Orleans streetcars so her pampered pooches can travel in luxury
‘It only really bothered him when he was walking up and down the stairs – I’ve worked with geriatrics in the past and I have geriatric dogs so I thought there had to be some way to make it easier for them to get upstairs.
‘At work, I’ve seen how helpful stairlifts are to people so I was surprised there wasn’t anything similar for dogs with all the different products that are available for pets nowadays.
‘So I thought that we might be able to create something ourselves for our dogs to use.
‘They’ve adapted to it so quickly, I thought I’d have to train them for a while to get used to it but they just get on it as if they’ve had it for years!
‘The two older pugs love it especially – they won’t use the stairs, they will sit there and wait until the ride is ready for them and it’s so cute.’
The clever DIY project took around three months to complete, with Zach’s retired engineer parents helping the couple with the wiring, which is neatly tucked beneath the stairs.
The couple built the DIY stairlift using a powerful motor meant for a car (above) so they were able to sit more than one dog in the cart at a time, speeding up the time waiting for the dogs to travel up the stairs
Sonya, who works as an occupational therapist, saw how helpful stairlifts could be for humans and embarked on the three-month long project to build her own doggie stairlift (left), fully kitted out with a ramp (right) to stop her pets from having to jump the last few steps
The family spent many weekends making the wooden structure and wiring, using a motor meant for a car so they could sit more than one dog in the cart.
Sonya said: ‘Both of my fiancé parents are living with us right now so we came up with a rough sketch of what we wanted, to show them and see if it was possible.
‘We took a lot of trips to home improvement stores and it was all trial and error – even something as simple as putting wheels on the cart was tricky because they didn’t make wheels small enough for what we needed.’
Once the stairlift was completed, the couple used treats to persuade the dogs to use the cart, before securing the latch and transporting them when needed.
Sonya said: ‘It was funny after we initially did the training because they would just sit in a line by the elevator thinking they would get a treat for it.
‘We’re proud that we were able to do it all from scratch.
The couple had help from Zach’s retired engineer parents (pictured with Sonya and Zac) when building the lift. They aided them with building the mechanism to run the stairlift safely
‘I was so shocked there’s nothing out there like it, with a range of pet products and money we’re all willing to spend on our pets nowadays.’
The quirky idea received an overwhelmingly positive reaction from family, friends and even strangers online, after Sonya first posted adorable pictures of her pets loving the lift on Facebook on July 11.
Sonya is now planning to paint the stairlift like the famous streetcars in their home city of New Orleans, so her beloved pets can ride in style.
She added: ‘I did wonder if I was going overboard with the idea but once we posted about it, the amazing feedback I got confirmed even more that we did the right thing for our pets.
‘If you’re not a pet person you might think it’s crazy but our dogs are like our children so we’re willing to do anything we can to make their lives easier.’