My puppy is deaf

[br1281]

Annabelle is 9 weeks and today I discovered that she is deaf. I noticed that she has not responded to her name or any commands and was sleeping very deeply. I accidentaly set off the house alarm last week and she never woke up. I decided today that I would take a bell and ring it very loudly to see if she would make any type of acknowledgment. She slept right through it. I called my vet and he said that this is very common in white frenchies. My fiance' and I are very sad about this. It is sad that she will never know her name. Does anyone else have a deaf frenchie??? How are you dealing with it? Have you ran into any behavioral issues due to it? Are you training sign language?

[gmacleod]

Deafness is not that uncommon with white dogs (depending on the genes involved in producing the white coat colour - which isn't actually colour, but lack of it).

Anyway, deafness isn't that big a handicap for a dog living with humans. It's really not. Dogs, after all, do not understand English or any other language ;) You can teach them that particular sounds you make (words) have meanings BUT you can equally teach them that hand signals that you make have those meanings. And actually, many people do train their hearing dogs by signals rather than verbal commands.

The only issue that you may have with a deaf dog that you don't with a hearing dog is that, in order to give a command, you must be within the dog's line of sight. That's not so hard to achieve ;) It does, however, perhaps raise issues around letting the dog offleash in unfenced areas as you may be unable to recall the dog is she isn't looking your way (but then, many hearing dogs don't have good enough recalls to allow for that either).

A very useful site that is worth a look is www.deafdogs.org

[Piperloo]

I would recommend that you supervise any dog interactions she has very carefully. A friend of ours had a deaf dog and occassionally the dog would get into fights with other dogs. They can read the body language but they can't hear the growling so a small puppy who doesn't know any better to begin with may have trouble learning dog ettique.

Also, be aware that even though she can't hear she will still be able to pick up sound vibrations. One day at the park my friend's dog was standing near my car. I accidentally set the car alarm off and the poor thing freaked out. :( It took a long while to calm her down because she had no idea what was going on.

[French Queen]

Hi there - Annabelle will manage fine it will be you who will have to adapt.

Our Sundaisy lost her hearing when she was 2yrs old through an illness, it took me a while to adapt the biggest mistake I kept making was calling her when she wasn't watching me but she managed perfectly. Visitors never knew she was deaf unless I told them.

Training was quite easy for me because she was so eager to please. First decide what hand signals you are going to use, only train one signal at a time so you dont confuse her.

I made up my own hand signals, I also spoke the command at the same time as I gave the signal so she could see my facial expression.
I used signals for come, stop, sit, praise. I didn't bother with the down command as long as she sat that was good enough for me & I didn't need to train her for the NO command as she already knew that clapping of hands meant NO before she was deaf.

The first thing I did was to train her to watch me by using treats, I would show her piece of food, her favorite was cheese it got her attention quicker, I would hold it to my chest & as soon as she looked at me I gave the praise signal & gave the food. I think I did this for 4/5 days if my memory serves me correctly, then gradually I kept repeating the whole process again but this time I moved the food further away from my chest till I had my hand down by my side then finally hid the food behind my back. I slowly built up the time that she would look at me, it soon clicked that no matter where the food was the only way to get it was to look at me.

I never startled her by grabbing her to get her attention I always stood in front of her first. To wake her up I would gently stroke or tickle inside her ear flap using one finger. Visitors were told not to disturb her if she was sleeping or grab her to get her attention.

It was pretty easy concerning exercise, I had access to fields where they were allowed to run free, she was never on a lead unless near the road. She literally was my shadow, she never took her eyes off me, I did feel a bit guilty that she never ran about with the others but she seemed happy. I continued to use these signs with all of my dogs as deafness is a frequent consequence of ageing so it comes in useful later on.

I dont want you to think that it's a piece of cake to train a deaf dog, they are all different, it just so happened Sundaisy was an exceptional student.

Besides signals & watching you, puppy training will be the same, you have to be consistent, all ways calm & be very patient remember she is only a baby so dont expect to much their attention span at this age is virtually nonexistent. Whatever signing you go for make it very short & make it fun.

Weather you will be able to let her off the lead when she's older will depend on her temperament. As for getting her attention in the house sometimes you will be lucky & just catch her eye or you could throw a treat near her she might look up but there will be times you will have to go to her but it's no great hardship.

Don't feel sad, Annabelle doesn't know any different, we are one's who seem to make an issue of it.

Hope you let us know how you are doing.

French Queen & the little clowns :)