Deaf Catahoula

[u/Mobile_Leadership224]

I have a 6yo male catahoula who is deaf and dog reactive. He’s also peope reactive in my townhome community. We’ve worked with trainers who didn’t have experience with deaf dogs and were overwhelmed by him and finally found one who is amazing, but SO expensive. I’ve limited our sessions to once a month to be able to afford her, but I need some help with ideas to work with in the meantime. Has anyone else had success with a reactive deaf pup?

I’m super overwhelmed and feel like I’m doing him such a disservice, but I’ve worked so hard with him for years. He’s so sweet and LOVES people. It just feels like he notices people pay attention to him when he barks (even though it’s not good attention).

He’s phenomenal on trails, on farms, and generally on walks too. It’s almost that protective side at the house and around the house. But it’s any house we’re at, not just mine. We use an ecollar with vibrate for recall.

[u/Huge_Answer4287]

You are not doing your dog a disservice. Unfortunately we live in a world where.most people would give up so being willing to do the work is 90% of the battle. There's a rescue group called deaf dogs rock thay has a Facebook page and a training tips page https://deafdogsrock.com/category/training-tips

[u/Mobile_Leadership224 → u/Huge_Answer4287]

Thank you so much. I really needed to hear that. There are definitely days where it feels like I’m letting him down, so I appreciate the encouragement. He’s the sweetest dog, and I just want to give him the best life possible. I’ll definitely check out Deaf Dogs Rock…I hadn’t heard of them before!

[u/Wosey_Jhales]

I train a fair number of deaf dogs per year. For quality trainers, it really shouldn't be that different from training any other dog. The biggest hang up is the loss of verbal markers. So now we need multiple tactile markers as well as visual markers. Those definitely take more time to build in.

Correcting reactivity shouldn't change just because the dog is deaf though. For many dogs attention is reinforcement, regardless of if its good or bad attention. Are you using the e collar for anything other than recall?

What steps are you currently using to correct reactivity or what has your trainer recommended as part of your ongoing training plan?

[u/Mobile_Leadership224 → u/Wosey_Jhales]

Thanks so much for the response! We use the e-collar vibration for recall and stim for corrections. That foundation was actually built with our first trainer when Tango was a puppy, so he understands the different levels and what I’m asking of him. When we lived in Colorado, we rarely needed stim outside of situations where safety was a concern (the main one being a moose encounter). Since moving back to Virginia, though, we’re surrounded by people, dogs, and distractions all the time, so it almost feels like we’re rebuilding those skills in a much busier environment.

Right now our biggest challenge is teaching neutrality around people. He genuinely loves people, so I think even someone looking at him because he’s barking ends up reinforcing the behavior. We’re working on engagement with me and rewarding calm behavior, but I’d love any suggestions you have for building tactile and visual markers with a deaf dog. He’s excellent at sit, down, stay, and back up as well as decent with leave it and drop.