deafdog

Sitka is our inspiration for training a deaf dog. Click here to see her and read about her accomplishments.

To begin with, you must decide if training a deaf dog is for you. A deaf dog is a huge responsibility. There are many aspects of dog ownership that are taken for granted. The owner of a deaf dog has to be ever so vigilant around safety. Owners of hearing dogs should also exercise the same caution, but a deaf dog leaves even less room for inattention. A deaf dog can not hear an approaching dog, child, or car. A deaf dog can not be called away from danger. Frequently, deaf dogs become defensive and hypersensitive. Owners need to caution people to be fair and only approach a deaf dog when invited to do so by the dog.

Deaf dogs never hear the soothing words of comfort and praise making it essential that the owner be very creative and lose all inhibition to let the dog know through actual facial emotions and physical display how happy they are with the dog. This is equally essential when expressing displeasure with the dogs' behavior. Its okay to talk to a deaf dog-- it will align your body language with what you are feeling.

The most important aspect to training the dog is to remember they will read what they see. One method for training Sitka to stay close to me when out on walks was to have her on a long line and if she wandered too far or kept her attention off of me for more than a couple of seconds, I would stop and hold still like a statue. She would eventually come back to me and nuzzle my hand. Once she had made that connection I came "alive" and gave lots of happy expressions, petting and a treat. Then, I would happily continue walking only to freeze again if she lost her attention on me. After several sessions, she would check back to keep me moving and now we go for long walks and she never takes her eyes off me and constantly checks back.

Competition obedience and agility training a deaf dog is similar to training the hearing version of the same breed. Sitka is a very focused, hard working herding dog that will work for hours for her tennis ball and piece of liver. Other breeds that are commonly deaf may take different motivations and drives to get results.

Deaf dogs are allowed in AMBOR, MBDCA, USDAA. NADAC, and UKC. They are not allowed in ASCA. You are allowed to use hand signals, even with a hearing dog.

Good	Clap, smile, say "Good", pet, make a big deal out of it.
Wrong	Frown, actually say "No" and swipe my hand and arm in a diagonal across my body.
Sit	Palm up and sweeping from my side to a 90 degree angle.
Down	Pointing to the ground
Come	Palm toward me and sweep towards my body.
Stand	Palm down and make a straight line from the dog's nose out away from the dog.
Heel (walking)	With dog at my side my left hand goes from at my side to across my stomach where it stays until the next the command.
Heel (from a front to finish)	With dog in front sweep a finger across my body to the left side making a half circle in the air.
Fetch	With my right hand sweep out and point in the direction of the object.
Hold	A closed fist in front of the dog signals her to hold the object.
Give	Grasp the object and sweep the hand in front of her face.
A-Frame, dog walk and teeter	Left hand straight up and then point to the obstacle.
Stay	Palm in front of her face.