Posted on 03/23/2011 5:42:16 AM PDT by Daffynition
hree-month-old Alice, a black and white springer spaniel, is learning non-verbal commands including sit, come and roll over.
She was dumped by a breeder in Ireland at just eight weeks after he realised she couldn't hear — and was taken in by animal charity The Blue Cross.
Staff were worried no-one would want her because she could not respond to an owner's calls.
But Alice has found her perfect match in couple Marie Williams, 41, and her partner Mark Morgan, 43 — who are both deaf.
Miss Williams, from West Mersea, Essex, said: "She was so beautiful and the fact that she was deaf just made us fall in love with her even more — we knew that she would fit right into our family.
"When we went to visit her at the centre I had tears in my eyes, because she was so cute and we bonded straight away." Quantcast
Less than a month after being rescued, Alice was rehomed with the couple and their three sons Liam, 16, Lewis, 13, and Owen, five.
Miss Williams said: "I feel so angry that someone abandoned her because in their eyes she was not 'perfect'.
"It goes to show with a little effort it is easy to cope with a deaf puppy. She has already learned the signs for several basic commands."
Julie Stone, manager of The Blue Cross animal adoption centre in Lewknor, Oxon, said: "Alice is such a loving and responsive dog and she proves that with a bit of time and effort, a deaf dog can be trained and become a wonderful pet."
Standard Obedience Competition Level 3 -— hand signals
:)
Must be a slow news day at The Sun.
Heck, I had (and trained) a deaf dog many years ago... and I’m not terribly familiar with the ASL hand signals, so I was handicapped by my lesser ability to communicate by hand signals. That’s actually a more impressive feat than this woman’s! Where was the press that day?
I have a deaf cat. He acts more like a dog and has been responding to sign language commands since he was a kitten. He responds to ‘come here’, ‘good boy’, and ‘No’. He is the only cat that I have that actually listens. His name is DC, short for Deaf Cat. He also fetches.
What I do with my puppy is make him ‘sit’ before he gets anything.. It works wonders! :) *hugs* for your puppy!
Ok now that’s a BRILLIANT idea!
I’ve had deaf pets before, I’ve had blind pets before, just made sure to work around them and learn how to get their attention without startling them. The blind ones are easier to cope with IMO...but making sure your approach is felt works just fine for the deaf + sleeping.
Def Snoop Dogg?
*shrugs at your shrugging*
What you say is true, but as you plainly state, you used *verbal* commands at the beginning of your training, combined the verbal commands with visual commands, and then weaned the dog off of the verbal commands.
You are not really comparing apples to apples.
Darling pup.
No, I use BOTH all the time. Either works the same. My point was that dogs often learn a sign quicker than a verbal command, or at least that is true in my experience.
Where signs are used exclusively is when the dog is too far away for comfortable speech.
Alas, Laffie never made it to Hollywood....
However, to answer your question, the same way they get other dimwits to perform on stage:
$$$$$$$$$$$$
Very cute pup.
My first Golden lived until 15 1/2. She went deaft at about 12, but we did not realize it until my neighbor mentioned that she’d noticed that my dog couldn’t hear. Sure enough she couldn’t, but we had not noticed because my dog followed my visual clues and responded to everything we wanted her to do. But, when she was far out in the field, she didn’t come when called. I found that if I waved my arm in a big circle, she understood and she came running right home.
Yes; indeed this was part of basic obedience training. At least with the much-maligned Bill Koehler method.
The biggest issue here is that the puppy has to realize he may need to look at the owners more for communication. That is the blessing of hearing - not having to turn your head.
Exactly. Hand signals themselves are very easy to teach. The hard part is keeping their attention so they see the signal without first saying their name.
It’s Obi-Wan and Jiu-Jitsu pup!
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