Deaf DogsHere's an unusual set of problems recently posed to me by a Dog Training Blueprint subscriber together with my suggestions on resolving them. Hi Andrew, I have a 10 week old great Dane puppy who is deaf and we are having a few problems with our older Labrador (he is used to GD's we lost our two great Danes in Feb and Sept this year and he really felt the loss and became more timid). The problem is he is a very submissive and fearful dog, he was a re-home who had been trained in our opinion harshly and has tended to be very submissive. The problem we have is the puppy wants to play with him and he is scared of the puppy. He growls a warning but for obvious reasons the puppy doesn't respond and keeps on trying to play, the end result being that the Lab nips him. The Lab does not at other times object to the puppy and wags his tail at him, sniffs him and frequently gets in the same basket as him, we just worry about the nips. During our absence we do crate the puppy just wondered if you have any tips. Regards,
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Hi Penni, When you've got a young puppy your natural instinct is to want to 'mother' it and protect it from any perceived danger so I understand fully your concerns. However, I think you're worrying needlessly. All pups want to play with other canines, whether it's another puppy or an older dog. There's absolutely nothing you can do about that. And nearly all older dogs are pretty tolerant of puppies, letting them get away with blue murder for the most part. But sooner or later there will nearly always come a point when the older dog has had enough. At that point most of them will turn on the pup and give it a quick bite. Occasionally you'll come across a dog that will just slope off somewhere on its own to get away from the pup. And on very, very rare occasions the older dog will viciously attack the pup, giving it a real hiding. It sounds to me like your older dog falls into the majority category and is tolerant up to a point, then has a quick snap. He's not attacking in a vicious way so the chances of him doing the puppy any serious harm are negligible - even at 10 weeks I would guess your dane pup is already bigger than the lab. Hard as it is for you to stand by and watch your gorgeous pup take a bite, my advice is for you to just go with the flow and let them sort things out between themselves. The time to begin to get concerned is if, when nipped by the lab, the pup ignores the warning and keeps up the harrassment, egging on and goading the lab. In this situation things could spiral out of control with the lab attacking progressively more viciously in his attempts to discipline the pup. However, from what you've said this doesn't sound as if it's happening. I would strongly advise you against crating the lab when they're unattended. If you do this the older dog could quite easily becomoe jealous of the pup, making it *more* likely to attack it when it gets the chance. Try and 'chill out', stand back and let nature take it's course. Regards,
Hi Andrew Thank you for the advice I probably was not clear we crate the puppy and not the Lab, Boo bear (the lab) is a sweetie and had developed so well with the older Danes he was quite a sorry state when we got him 2 years ago, harshly trained, unloved and also abused by a 14 month old Rottweiler, so he had a fair amount of trauma to overcome. With our older Danes he saw them as his protectors and after we lost Ricoh at 10 to his sixth twisted gut in 8 months he did revert back to total fear mode. Your words confirmed what I already knew but it provides a good level of comfort knowing that we are right to and need to step back. Not wishing to abuse your support any tips on training a deaf puppy? We are using hand signals, he already knows the sign for NO but house training is a little hit and miss. Thanks for your quick reply. Regards,
Hi Penni, Silly me - having re-read your original email I see you were *perfectly* clear about the fact you crate the puppy not the lab when you're out. My mistake entirely - I must have been half asleep when I read it! Although I never used to be a fan of crates, I have to say that in the last 8 or 9 years I've become more of a believer in them in certain specific situations. And crating your pup while you're out is one of those situations, so by all means continue to do that. However, I wouldn't look on that as a long term solution - try to dispense with it as soon as you feel the pup's settled down enough to be ok uncrated. Only you will know when that time has come. (You can always go back to using the crate for a short while again if on trying him without it you actually discover that move was a bit premature.) As for the deafness that's something I don't really feel qualified to advise you on. In all my years of dog training I've only ever had any involvement with one deaf puppy, a springer spaniel. (And just to make matters even worse he was also blind in one eye!) He was in the very first group training class I ever ran, way back in the mid 1980's, and to be honest about the only thing I remember about him was his name - Nelson (thanks to his one eye!). You're quite right to concentrate on hand signals. But don't necessarily restrict it to just *hand* signals - use body language in general. Dogs naturally 'read' body language amongst themselves (stiff legged gait, ear position, tail carriage etc all mean different things in doggy-speak) so it'll be a completely natural thing for him to do. You'll just have to be creative (and consistent about it) in coming up with a whole new 'language'using your body. Your job then is simply to teach him this new language. It's actually much easier in practice than it sounds - as well as teaching my own dogs whistle and spoken commands, I always also teach a 'sign language' version of all the most important commands - come here, sit/down, heel - and with Ripple, my last dog, I taught far more hand signals besides. Make absolutely certain you teach a sign language version of 'good boy' so that you can always praise him (so long as he's looking at you) when he's not right beside you. As far as the toilet training goes, it's bound to be more difficult than with a pup with normal hearing, but all the principles are just the same. Whenever you think he's about due for a toilet break, take him outside and stay with him until he performs. As soon as he does give him plenty of praise. At 10 weeks old I doubt he can last much more than a couple of hours at a time at the moment, so don't leave him unattended beyond when you think 'it's time'. The more time you can spend in constant attendance at the moment the better. You need to be watching him like a hawk so you can read the signs and know when to get him outside. As a general rule most pups are ready for the toilet straight after eating, and then again at some point before the next meal's due. Only by spending lots of time watching him carefully will you begin to get a feel for how his body clock works in this regard. Every time he has an accident indoors that makes
your job a little bit harder because he's 'got
away with' doing it inside. Always, always aim
to anticipate what's about to happen and get him
outside in time. Then just hang around as long
as it takes. If you haven't already got one, make
sure you've got a decent coat! With the onset of
early winter you're in for lots of time spent
hanging around outside in pretty awful weather!
Even if it's absolutely *filthy* outside you need
to be out there with him so that -
One final thought - vibration might be a useful string to your bow (what a dreadful - and entirely unintentional - pun!). You need to have a way of attracting his attention as there are bound to be times when he's not right beside you and neither is he looking at you, yet you need to tell him something. Stamping your feet might work - it certainly does for deer and rabbits! And vibration through the air might work too. Remember those wooden things people used to take to football matches years ago that you whirl round and round and make an awful racket? They also made an incredible amount of air vibration. Other thoughts - Imagine you've got a large elastic band in your hand which you stretch taught. Then if you 'strum' it it'll vibrate. And remember the old kiddies 'telephones' before today's plastic and battery powered versions? Where you got a couple of paper cups, made a hole in the base, then joined them together with a long length of string? (I'm not suggesting you give the pup one end by the way! Merely trying to get you thinking about the principle of different ways of causing vibration). I know I'm just twittering away here without giving you any concrete suggestions, but I'm just trying to get you on the same wavelength so you can maybe come up with some ideas yourself. What about if you had some sort of stick/baton 3 or 4 foot long, then attached a length of lightly elasticated string type material to one end. On the other end of the 'elastic/string' tie something with a bit of weight to it. Then if you were to get the thing spinning so whatever your weighty object is starts whirring round and round at high speed, you'd create a fairly powerful air vibration. You'd have to play around with all 3 elements to discover what was the best combination of materials, lengths, weights etc in order to produce the desired effect while at the same time remaining relatively safe. Sorry I can't be more specific - I've never trodden the path that you have before you, so I'm just thinking aloud in the hope it'll spark off some ideas for you. Do please let me know how you get on - I'd love to hear the occasional progress report. Regards,
Hi Andrew Sorry I didn't reply sooner but your reply was mis-filed into another folder! We are making slow steps forward, when I'm in the kitchen the two dogs do sit in the large basket together, although Boo Bear the Lab is not 100% comfortable when the puppy's awake, there is also a lot more tail wagging between them and when BB is out in the garden Boo likes to watch. I think things will get easier once Billy Bob can go for walks. Its sad really that the lab has lost his two big brothers this year they were a close unit. The first Dane we lost was the Alpha in the group and after he was put to sleep, neither of the other two took over the role, it was almost like when the two of them went to the water bowl the conversation went; you go first" "no you go first", where as when Taz was with us he always went first. I think therefore that Billy Bob will be the dominant dog, obviously with me as the overall alpha. We are now all set to start working to make wind type tools, he does seem to pick up on the wind chimes, and stamping feet works, we think he gets some sound through as I am experimenting with lots of different pitch screams of Puppy and Billy Bob, luckily our neighbours are wonderful and not concerned about me screaming around the garden, in fact they come in during the day when I'm working to let the dogs out and give the Pup his lunch. He is going to have his hearing tested at Newmarket after Christmas so we will know the full extent of his deafness. Anyway I will keep you up to date with our progress, and would really like to thank you for all of your help. I show and breed cats so have a great network of people to go to for advice on cats but know very few people in the dog world. Many thanks,
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