I have a couple of book reviews on my main dog training site (link is in sidebar) about training deaf dogs. I've been quite surprised at how much attention they get, and by how many people click through and buy the books at Dogwise.
So I'm doing a little more on that site about deaf dogs and when I came across this article, I thought I'd bring it to your attention.
I've wondered if there really ARE a lot of deaf dogs, or if by the vagaries of the internet, those reviews of mine just happen to rank well at the search engines.
In any case, enjoy this article! To read the rest, click the link just below here.
Training a Deaf Dog: Do I Have Your Attention?
The basics for training a deaf dog are no different than training a hearing dog: you want to reward desired behavior and ignore unwanted behavior. If you decide to train a deaf dog, you will face some special issues pretty quickly. Most positive dog training practices rely on communicating through sound. Since your dog can't hear, you'll have to come up with some alternatives for commands and for getting and keeping your dog's attention. You'll also need to discover substitutes for verbal praise and feedback.
Of course, you can use your dog's vision to communicate. Most dogs--hearing or deaf--will actually learn hand signals more quickly than verbal commands, so this isn't such a big deal. The only problem you'll may face is keeping your hand signals consistent from time to time and among family members.
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