Hi Kelly, Welcome to BPO! You will love it here
Kate is absolutely adorable!
As far as the stairs go, I wouldn't worry too too much about them. The reason you want to try and limit them is to help prevent hip dysplacia, and there are many other preventative actions you can also take to help protect the hips, but of all the preventative measures to take to help protect dogs from HD, keeping them off of stairs is the hardest, since they want to be able to go where you go, and stairs are just an unavoidable part of life. ... And luckily, leo's are only ranked 60th (compared to say a Saint, which is ranked 6th) on this OFA's list of breeds most likely to acquire HD (
http://www.offa.org/hipstatbreed.html ). You should deffinately try and carry her up/down stairs as long as you can (to protect her hips while they are still forming), but when she gets too heavy to carry, don't worry that you are hurting her. It will help her form muscles, and the more muscles she has to support her hips, the better
As far as getting her to respect the baby gate goes, two of the most helpful comands to teach her are "leave it" and "wait". With the help of those, you can teach her to stay away from the baby gate.... Either that, or you can take the route we took: fear. Now, I would never try and make zoey afraid of anything, but we usually just lean the babygate against the opening instead of putting it in place for real (it's just easier) and when zoey was a baby, she accidentally knocked it down a few times. As a result, zoey thinks the baby gate is alive and trying to eat her, so she is terrified of it
At first we felt bad, but now that she is big and strong enough to knock it down if she felt like, I am pretty glad that she is afraid of it...