sweet_ceana Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 This is Abby: She is a BC X Aussie mix, and tends to move like a BC. We had a 3 month old with some eye and crouching/ stalking (with one leg up!) Poke and Ceana while they played ball. Tripp hates toys and he gets very angry when he sees them so he was not out for this extravaganza. She just came home with us this evening and is our brand new 3 month old foster. They said they tested her hearing at the shelter and she is fine... I disagree. I think she was taking her cues from the other pups. We can clap yell, make squeely high pitched noises and we get no responce. Everyonce in a while she'll look at us calmly, but no real reaction. Chris has even snapped his fingers behind her ears and we get no responce. If she can hear, it can't be very much. Obviously "AHH," is not going to work as an attention grabber. Does anyone have any suggestions or advice on raising and teaching a deaf pup? What is the best way to teach her "no." We worked a little tonight on eye contact. I would touch her nose and then move my finger to my nose and she got snuggles when she made eye contact. It worked well, but she is 3 months old so she has the attention span of a nat. After 5 minutes it was time to let her brain relax. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninso Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 Hey--I have a deaf foster that I've had for a little over three months. I have to run right now, but I'll write more when I get back to the office. They are super fun and a blast to train--at least mine is! And I've managed to teach her "no" pretty well, though she's still naughty one, but at least she'll stop doing one naughty thing when I tell her to and move on to another. She was 8 months when I got her. A little over a year now. BRB! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DTrain Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 You say this is a foster dog. I think you should keep her. If she is deaf this could be a very rewarding experience training her. My best dog is not the best I have ever seen on voice commands. He is good on whistles but he is very good on body language. I got him when he was already fully trained so I had to learn to work with him. This caused some real difficulties. While working stock he was doing things I did not ask for or expect. I did not know what was going on until a fellow handler told me to shut up and stand still. He had made a connection I had not noticed. I was sending my dog signals through body language and he was doing exactly what he was trained to do or at least learned to do from another handler. This presented me with an very interesting challenge I have enjoyed very much. I had to learn what body language my dog wanted and responded to. We now work very well together and frankly working with him is much more fun and rewarding than I ever expected. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninso Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 Ok . . . So, it's been a huge learning experience for me with my deaf dog, but a really fun one! I am doing clicker training with her--with a little keychain flashlight. It's really bright, so she doesn't need to be looking right at it in order to see it. Thus, I am able to give her hand signals or train something like eye contact and she can watch me and the flashlight at the same time. It works marvelously! We also started out with eye contact, then sit and down, targeting my fist with her nose, targeting a piece of duct tape on the floor with her paw, roll over, wave, weaving between my legs, wait, OK (release command), leave it, stand, etc. All in like 3 months! "No" is tough because you can't yell it from across the room, or even from right next to them for that matter--well, you can yell, but all you'll be doing is scaring your other dogs! You need to get a little physical here. I usually just go and interrupt whatever she's doing and redirect her. I do use physical corrections occasionally, since I can't use verbal corrections and she's not a soft dog, but they don't really phase her and she usually just thinks I'm trying to play. She reads my body language really well and body blocking works well for various things. The coolest thing I ever taught her was the "leave it" command. This comes in handy for a variety of things. I just started with her kibble, putting a few pieces on the floor and gave her the hand signal I wanted to use (a pointed index finger) and waited for her to stop trying to get the food (covering it with my hand so she couldn't get to it) and look at me. When she did, I clicked (or, flashed, in this case) and picked up the food and gave it to her. She caught on pretty quickly and pretty soon whenever I put food on the ground she would just back WAY up and look at me like, "no way, I'm not falling for that!" Once I even spilled her whole entire bowl of kibble all over the floor, gave her the hand signal for "leave it" and she didn't touch a single piece while I cleaned it up! Later on, she generalized the "leave it" command to mean "drop whatever you have in your mouth." This is really cool, needless to say! If she has anything she shouldn't all I have to do is hold up my finger and she drops it. Since then, the pointed finger has kind of become a general "no" command. She is kind of a pain, really, really busy and always finding something annoying to do, but she will at least stop for the moment if I give her the "leave it" signal. Another good thing to teach is a "wait" and "release." The two main situations where I use these are waiting at the door for a release to go outside and waiting while I put down her food bowl for the release before she can eat. For the food bowl, obviously at first when I would go to put it in front of her, she would try to get to it right away. Every time she would go for it, I would just pick it right back up (p.s., I have her in a "sit" in this situation and make her sit again every time she gets up). When she stops trying to go for the food, I give her the OK signal (just the regular "ok" sign with thumb and index finger in a circle) and then encourage her to eat. Same situation for teaching her to wait at the door. Body block until she is sitting quietly and looking at me, then give her the OK as I open the door, gradually building up the wait time. Feel free to PM with additional questions! The first thing I'd do though it get a little flashlight so you can start clicker training her--I don't know how else you would be able to tell her "yes, you did the right thing." I think you'll have tons of fun with her, and find that training her is really not all that different than training hearing dogs! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobcmom Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 I have a somewhat related question and am interested in people's thoughts. I've read a number of threads where people talk about training a deaf dog. The general trend seems to be that there are some different challenges, but that deaf dogs were great to train. They crave the guidance, work, and attention from their people. Attention is a critical skill when training any dog, especially so for deaf dogs. Is it easier to train attention with a deaf dog than a hearing dog? I'm thinking it would be the foundation for training a deaf dog, but can get glossed over for a hearing dog, and people rely on voice commands, when attention is just as important. Other thought? mobcmom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninso Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 With mine, she just is pretty much always paying attention to me, watching me, etc, so it's not really a big deal. But then, she IS border collie and they are pretty attentive normally. The hard part is getting her attention when she's across the room. Stomping on the floor works sometimes. If I was gonna keep her, I would buy a vibrating collar with her and train her to respond to that like hearing dogs would respond to their name. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweet_ceana Posted January 9, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 Thanks for the advice! The flash light sounds fantastic!!!!!! We are going to get one ASAP. I am thinking we may try using a squirt bottle for the across the room "no." Especially for potty training. I have to see how she reacts to it first though. I do not want to scare the poor girl. I have one dog who just finds it annoying, so if that is the responce I get from her we may use it. If she acts anything like Poke with a squirt bottle (He looks at you like you have just stomped on his heart) we will NOT be using it at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninso Posted January 9, 2009 Report Share Posted January 9, 2009 The squirt bottle is a good idea. I use one with mine once in awhile for barking in her crate--her previous foster home used it and said it worked well. I sometimes don't have the heart to squirt her though, cause as soon as I grab the bottle she squints up her eyes and cowers back. I figure the warning is enough. Does Abby bark a lot? Mine is a terrible demand barker--not even a barker, screamer is a more adequate description. She would probably annoy even herself if she could hear all the racket she's making, but she can't. She must think she has "the force" or something, being able to get me to turn around and look at her from across the room! It took a couple weeks for her to realize that barking was not going to get her anything, but it has obviously worked quite well for her in the past. If Abby's not a barker now, I would make sure to ignore any barking, except letting you know she needs to go out or other times where barking is appropriate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweet_ceana Posted January 10, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 We used the light and it has seemed to work well so far. She definetly associates it with treats, the only problem is so do Ceana, Poke and Tripp. LOL All four seem to have caught on to the visual clicker. I got a couple of sits out of her, but she is 3 months old so 10 minutes non-stop learning was plenty! ETA: Abby reacted to a noise! She attempted to nibble on my hand, and I made a squeely noise like you normally do with a puppy and she stopped and tilted her head and looked at me! Hooray! She is not completely deaf. I am going to test some higher pitched noises with her tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaisingRiver Posted January 10, 2009 Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 Just a note, for the first 2 days Aero completely ignored me when I brought him home, no amount of clapping, etc could get his attention. I thought he was deaf. Either way, good luck with her! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sweet_ceana Posted January 10, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 Just a note, for the first 2 days Aero completely ignored me when I brought him home, no amount of clapping, etc could get his attention. I thought he was deaf. I REALLY hope that Abby is just being stubborn! That would be fantastic! If she is ignoring us she is rock solid! She came and laid in my lap while I was drying my hair like there was no hair dryer and didn't even flinch when we used the industrial streangth carpet cleaning machine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaisingRiver Posted January 16, 2009 Report Share Posted January 16, 2009 I REALLY hope that Abby is just being stubborn! That would be fantastic! If she is ignoring us she is rock solid! She came and laid in my lap while I was drying my hair like there was no hair dryer and didn't even flinch when we used the industrial streangth carpet cleaning machine. Glad to hear in your photo post that she's not deaf after all. Little buggers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nepsa Posted January 18, 2009 Report Share Posted January 18, 2009 Interesting read... I had a deaf border collie who knew over 90 signs. She was so bright to the point where she was almost human. She was our "Air Bud" dog. She loved soccer, T-ball, etc like that. When I took her out for walks....she would "check in" as she walked/ran in the fields. She was not leashed out in the fields since her deafness was NOT a barrier since she would check in every 1 min to ensure we are behind her. She never strayed far. Also another thing; I would "call her" in by flicking my porch lights and she would come running in. She had amazing recall. Treat her a DOG first...and the deafness last. Don't make the deafness an issue and baby her due to that. I've heard of many thing such as "deaf dogs are more likely to get hit by a car than a hearing dog"...well....not true. Aspen never had a near miss or been hit by a car. She knows that there's cars and looks before she crosses. Her deafness wasn't an issue with her at all. I had entered her in fly-ball and she was one of the best in fly-ball here in Canada. But I retired her at 8 yrs old due to a fly-ball related injury. I currently have a deaf Aussie. Since you have bcXaussie. I hope that you have more of a BC than aussie. I'm learning that Aussie breed are more difficult than BC since most BC wants to please you easily. This aussie pup has her own mind and is very tough dog to train. If I had to do it all over again; I won't get an Aussie again. Going to stick with BCs from now on. (of course we are keeping our deaf aussie pup) Here's a picture of our deaf aussie pup. Our pup has very POOR eye contact and needs a very firm hand in training which means we have to be hard with her since she's not a soft dog at all. Totally the opposite of Aspen. She's now 6 months old. I just uploaded a pic of her that was taken today. She's not a velcro dog or very social dog at all; she doesn't care for people and is into her own world and has her own mind. Good luck with your deaf BC; and LUCKY you!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bc4pack Posted January 19, 2009 Report Share Posted January 19, 2009 Does anyone have any suggestions or advice on raising and teaching a deaf pup? I believe there is a Yahoo group for deaf dog owners and http://www.deafdogs.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninso Posted January 19, 2009 Report Share Posted January 19, 2009 Also another thing; I would "call her" in by flicking my porch lights and she would come running in. My deaf girl does this too! It was my BF's idea and I never even had to train her to do it. The first time I flicked the lights she just came running! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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