Training a deaf dog.

[domanda]

We bought a gorgeous staffy pup a few months ago but found out when he had his jabs that he was infact deaf. The vet offered some advice on how a deaf dog can still be trained etc, but the advice was very limited. Now we have been patient with "Banjo", and he is a fantastic and loyal pet. However his behaviour has gotton worse for some reason or another. He will not stop chewing anything he can get hold of, he won't stop humping guests when they come round and the worst thing of all is last week, he run away from me whilst in the local park. This was really out of character for Banjo but because he cannot hear us, we couldn't call him back. Luckily he waited for me by the main road outside the park where we were. We don't know what to do about his behaviour, we love him so much but he is a little misbehaving pup at the moment.

Please help!!!!

[Leigha]

There is a member of the forum whose dog is deaf and she has done wonderful and amazing things with him. Use the search function to find topics and posts by Horace's Mum.

[whenhoundsfly]

A deaf dog can be trained no differently then a hearing dog, except instead of using a clicker or a verbal marker "yes", you use a visual marker. Some examples include Thumbs Up,or a flashlight.

I trained a goldfish using a flash light as an event marker since I wasn't sure if the goldfish could hear underwater:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4kPZ25IMn0

Regarding a recall, you could consider the use of a remote vibrating collar. I emphasize vibrating and NOT shock collar. The point is that the vibration becomes the cue for the recall.

With those tools in place, you can pretty much train a deaf dog the same way you would train a hearing dog.

Hope that helps.

Andre