When You're Dog Starts Going Deaf.....

[Tempest]

I've noticed over the last couple of months that Ollie seems to be getting progressively deafer I'm not sure of his exact age but at a guess from the vet he's about 10ish now.

 

Things I've started to notice are that if I go out with Jess to training and he's at home when we come in he doesn't hear us (even if I call him) and I have to go and touch him to wake him up so he knows I'm there. Also most of you know how phobic he is about fireworks/thunder and we've had a couple of really big storms this week and he's not even looked up from his bed which has completely shocked me

 

The main thing I'm worried about though is that he's not hearing me when I recall him - I do use a whistle too but he's just not responding to it (I know it could be selective recall on his part though - he is 50% springer after all ). As a result I've being keeping him onlead more often but I was wondering if I should perhaps start teaching him some hand signals or introduce him to one of those vibrating collars that you can get for deaf dogs?

[staffymad]

Snatch knows all his commands in hand signals for when the day comes and he gets deaf, same as Ruby and same as Tango before her. As Tango was already deaf we got her one of those vibrating collars to attrackt her attention. Once she looked at you, hand signals. Obviously when they don't want to hear you they just look the other way Tango didn't like the collat so in the end I trained snatch to get her attention for me.

[khanu]

I'm not sure that many dogs like the vibrating collar, I think i would find it pretty aversive myself.

With Kayla, to wake her we stroke her front paw, to catch her attention when she is facing away from us (but stood still) we gently touch her shoulder but even then she sometimes visibly jumps so I try to approach at an angle where she will see me (difficult now though as her eyesight deteriorates more) When she is off lead we just have to keep an eye on her. She only goes off lead when with the other dogs as she follows them more easily, she is slightly easier to handle though as she is wobbly so you can sprint to catch her if needed. If I think she may wander off or fall in the pond etc she is just kept on lead. She responds readily to an open arm signal and comes trotting back, she is also pretty good at interpreting my sweeping arm motion I use when ushering them all in from the garden. Although I know she is deaf I still call her talk to her and praise her verbally as I think it affects body language.

[Brenda]

We used hand signals with Ben and he learnt them really quickly.

[Tilly1712]

We had the added advantage of being able to catch up with our old boy, he was getting quite slow by the time he went deaf, so recall wasn't really a problem. But when we wanted to get his attention, in the garden or out walking, we used to clap our hands loudly as it seemed to give the right pitch to get his attention (and everyone elses too ). Then we'd use hand signals like open arms, beckoning etc.

 

Tango didn't like the collat so in the end I trained snatch to get her attention for me.

 

Great idea Cindy, delegate the training to another dog

[Hayley]

Teddy and Snoopy are both 14 and never wake up when I get in

 

If I am on the sofa and call Teddy he always looks up the stairs as if the voice came from up there, which I find quite funny

 

Snoopy also has quite bad cataracts and struggles to see in the dark

 

So they make brilliant guard dogs

 

Sorry no advice there really, just wanted to share

 

[ranirottie]

my old staffie Maisie was totally deaf when she came and as she was in her teens and had no hand signal training we had to start from scratch. She learned very fast and was great when looking at me but obviously not if she looked away. So I used to carry a very long cane when we went out and just used to touch her on her back and she would turn round to look at me,then I gave her hand signals. It worked well and meant that she could still be let off lead. x

[Fee]

Musky is totally deaf and learned to come back to hand signals very quickly. When we're on walks I signal him back every few minutes and reward him so he's used to checking on me regularly in case he might miss something.

[Ingrid]

Same here with my old collie, hand signals, which strangely enough Zen still responds to

We found that out on walks he kept an eye on us and would respond instantly to hand signals to come back.

It was only in his final years when he started to los his sight that we kept him on and extender lead as he still enjoyed walks

[Mrs B]

Susie, our last collie, became quite hard of hearing - but I also found that clapping my hands in the garden acted and worked as a recall when other sounds failed.

 

Now that I have two youngsters that are profoundly deaf, I've had to look at things completely differently. Outdoors my recall signal consists of waving my arms in the air and jumping up and down as well if that doesn't work - hopefully Ollie's eyesight is still good? Erm, it helps to have no sense of dignity if you're going to do this in public, I find. I guess you will need to test this out in the garden first too. However at the end of the day, it will depend on how you find Ollie responds whether you feel you need him on a long line or can trust his recall.

 

Apart from that, I guess you could just generally help him out for the future, but starting to put hand signals in now, when you give your verbal commands - you're probably doing this already though.

Edited June 24, 2007 by Mrs B

[Rumpole]

i have three deaf dogs two that were obviously born deaf as both white and relatively young and one who went deaf with age handsignals are the way to go but apparently mine are now so subtle that very few people realise the dogs are deaf they just seem to slip into a routine naturally and as someone else says i still talk to them as if they were hearing dogs

[Tempest]

Thanks guys - he already knows hand signals for sit, down and wait but I think the problem is getting him to look at me when we're out on a walk so he can see the recall signal - he spends soooooo much of his time snuffling in the bushes bless him

[Mrs B]

Thanks guys - he already knows hand signals for sit, down and wait but I think the problem is getting him to look at me when we're out on a walk so he can see the recall signal - he spends soooooo much of his time snuffling in the bushes bless him

 

Do try the jumping up and down bit.

 

Some dogs pick up on vibrations better than others - and if Ollie is one who does, then he may look to see what is causing his world to shake, and see you doing a recall.