When a deaf dog is a good listener

Daria came to us with an unusual name, and none of my friends and family who have met her could remember it. So they ended up calling her variations on Delia, Doria, Dorito, and Dahlia. It's hard to motivate to decide on a name for a deaf dog; after all, you're not going to be calling her. But you do need a way to refer to her, and for a foster dog you need something catchy that will make would-be adopters stop and take a look.  

I like Dahlia; it's a bit smoother and more feminine than Daria and so that one has stuck.  

Dahlia is really settling in with us--she is very attached to me and Florian and has adjusted well to our routine. She is still a wacky little pill in the evenings, though she settles down more quickly for sure. The other night, she was pestering me and barking and without thinking I told her to Sit! and that little butt hit the floor faster than I've ever seen it on any of my dogs or past foster dogs who could hear perfectly fine. 

It was almost as if she could hear.

But I think what really happened is that she is very tuned in, very treat motivated, and very eager to please. She sat just because she is a smart little thing who thought it was a good bet that a Sit would bring a treat.

For me it just brought home a little more how not a big deal her deafness is. In a few short weeks she has been readily and easily trained in the basics--and she's got them down better than many of the hearing dogs I've had. 

So proud of my little deaf piglet-pill!

The Unexpected Delights of Fostering a Deaf Dog

As everyone who's ever fostered a critter knows, fostering brings all sorts of unexpected opportunities for learning. 

Through fostering, I've learned about reactive dogs, shy dogs, older dogs, and impulsive dogs. I've learned about training beagles and shepherds, sight hounds and herding dogs and pit bull type dogs, puppies and cats and kittens.

But until now, I've never had the chance to learn about deaf dogs. 

A lot of it is pretty intuitive. Instead of verbal commands, there are hand signals. They are similar to the ones you would use for training a dog who can hear, which you do before introducing verbal cues because dogs respond more readily to motion than they do to sound. 

Instead of a clicker, you mark a successful Sit or Down or Shake with a "flash": showing the dog your hand and quickly spreading out all five fingers, and then following up with a treat. 

In many ways, the experience of fostering Daria is no different than its been with any of the young, active pups I've fostered over the years (which of course have been most of them, since as I've learned from Kristina Finney, the Foster Coordinator with the Washington Humane Society, the dogs most likely to linger on the adoption floor are high-energy pit bull-type dogs of around 2 years of age, particularly if they are dark-colored and female). 

There's been the initial delight of seeing her smile, when I knew that in the shelter she'd been so nervous and unhappy.

There are the struggles with hyperactivity and impulsive behavior, which as with most young dogs are at their height at precisely the time when humans would like to relax.  

There are the adoption events, and the chance to romp and frolic with a couple of other pit pups who are dark-colored, young, and energetic and have yet to be adopted. 

There's the fun of watching a new dog's personality unfold like a flower as she adjusts to being in a loving home, 

and demonstrates that in addition to the cow and the piglet that are among her ancestors, she adores the water and must also be part duck. 











There's the slow period of adjustment with the resident dog, although this aspect is I think challenged by Daria's inability to hear. 

Daria is unusually persistent in trying to get Fozzie's attention, and her somewhat less than charming play style consists largely of nipping, biting, barking and humping. While the vast majority of communication among dogs is undoubtedly body language, I have to believe that her indifference to his signals is at least in part due to the fact that she can't hear him telling her to go away. 

So as with any impulsive dog, we use it as an opportunity to learn self-control by going to her bed, lying down and doing a nice Stay. 

There's the fun of seeing how affectionate and loving she is when she finally does settle down, and of hearing her snore when she sleeps.












These are all things you'd experience, to one degree or another, with any new foster dog. But what's really fascinating is the ways in which a deaf dog is different, most of which I hadn't thought about at all. 

Of course training is more difficult because I can't use my voice to get her attention. If she's harassing Fozzie in the other room, I can't holler to redirect her but have to physically stop what I'm doing and go where she is. 

Sometimes, I have to tap her on the shoulder. Often, maybe because her other senses are so acute, or maybe because we've worked on rewarding eye contact, she knows the moment I am nearby and gives me her full attention. 

There are also unexpected advantages to having a deaf dog. 

When she is in the midst of a deep snooze, I can go into the kitchen for a late-night snack and rustle bags around, open the fridge, and make food preparation noises that would have other dogs salivating on my feet, and she'll just go on snoozing. I can argue with my spousal figure or yell at my computer, and she won't take it personally or think that the world is about to end like so many sensitive dogs who can hear. She'll just go about her happy-go-lucky way, oblivious to the discord. 

When I come home from work, and she is crashed out on the couch, I don't have to worry about being mobbed at the door. She'll remain crashed out, blissfully snoring. 










Of course, a lot of what's unique about Daria is the connection I have with her, which is unique for every foster dog. There is something just so adorable about that little pink face and that loving spirit, about that innocent, joyful consciousness that exists in a world so different than what we who hear can imagine. 

Though I have experienced deep, heart-level connection with other pint-sized pocket pitties of the snorty, spunky, female persuasion, I wonder if Daria is particularly sweet and loving because with me she's experienced communication for the first time. 







Because for her the world is silent, and the human world makes even less sense than it does for most dogs. So she is relieved that finally there is structure and a sense that she can control her environment.  

Which, along with good food, lots of affection, and abundant opportunity to enjoy tactile pleasures,

is important for any dog, not just the snorty deaf pittie-cow-duck-piglets. 

Tackling Evening Devil Dog Syndrome

Let's say that you're fostering a dog, a loving, smart, adorable dog, who is ostensibly a 3-5 year old dog, from the look of her teeth, but who behaves like a 6 month old puppy. A dog who, every evening, goes through several hours in which she absolutely must have your attention or else she humps your other dog incessantly and/or barks, zooms around, jumps on and off furniture, and nips your arms. 

Now let's say that you are all about giving dogs attention, but that those few hours after you've arrived home from a long bike ride and a full day at work are precisely the hours in which you would like nothing more than to space out with an ice pack on your lower back in front of a really bad TV show, or perhaps in front of a movie featuring 6 attractive 20somethings who go camping in a beautiful remote wilderness, and end up being chopped into small pieces, one by one, by a deranged mountain person or supernatural 

force, just like they did in every other one of the movies your significant other has rented in the seven years since you've known him. 

Or maybe you'd even like to just read something halfway intelligent, like a Buddhist book on anger management, or something relaxing in its humor by David Sedaris or relaxing in its bleakness by Cormack McCarthy. 

Regardless of your recipe for evening relaxation, all these options are off the table when you've got a dog afflicted with Evening Devil Dog Syndrome. All you can do is try to tire her out.









Fortunately, Daria is highly food motivated 

and she is super smart and like most dogs, enjoys training.

We've been working on the basics, which of course are great for focus and impulse control. 

A dog who can sit for a treat is a dog who is starting to learn that there are more rewarding things in life than humping a dog who does not want to be humped. 


Better yet, an impulsive, deaf dog who can sit is learning maybe for the first time a system of communication that is based on something other than frustration. Instead of hump, nip, and bark in frustration and be strangled by an equally frustrated human, there is the option to sit, and get a treat.





Daria readily picks up hand signals, and we've been working on all the basic skills. One fun trick is Called Sit and Wait While I Give a Treat To Fozzie and Give Him Love. There is no specific hand signal for that one, but its title is pretty self-explanatory. If she can get that one, she'll have an A+ in impulse control, let me tell you.

We've also been incorporating some other tricks to help tire her out and give her brain something to do. She hasn't yet learned to put those paws up on a pilates ball--which Fozzie learned so well in his Doggie Dance Class-- 

but she readily learned to stand on her hind legs and seems to love it. That's gotta be tiring, as well as being adorable. 

Small pitties make such great trick dogs and circus dogs. What a great outlet for all that wacky energy.

And, you can do your hand signals with one hand, the other hand on the ice pack or the remote.

What's YOUR prescription for the Evening Devil Dog?