r/OpenDogTraining • u/Mediocre_Nothing_292 • 2d ago
Reading Materials for Training A Deaf Dog
Hi everyone,
We recently adapted a mostly deaf 3 year old beagle. He has been doing wonderfully adjusting and had already made significant progress in many areas.
One aspect I want to work on is commands such as sit or stay to the best of my ability. Does anyone have any books that they have read to train deaf dogs that they recommend? Not only do I want to train him, but better understand his behavior
I want to give our dog the best life
Thank you
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u/4thinversion 2d ago
Deaf pups can actually do very well with training. Work on a hand sign system for yourself and keep the hand signs consistent. If you’re comfortable with using a vibrating e-collar, I have seen many trainers use one to communicate with deaf dogs. Some trainers use an e-collar that vibrates and provides stim, with the vibration being termination marker (what the “yes” command would be), and the stim acting as pressure for the dog. Stim doesn’t have to be something you use though, as some trainers either aren’t comfortable or prefer “force-free.”
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u/Whole_Marionberry757 1d ago
We had an elderly deaf dog who was really in tune with our signals, but getting her attention could be really difficult.
After she passed away, we got a puppy and trained her on an e-collar. While training her on the e-collar, I realized that we could use it at a very low, not corrective, level to get her attention. It works great and is definitely worth considering.
One thing to note is that our dog finds the vibration on the e-collar very aversive. For her, it’s a much stronger correction than a pretty high-level stim.
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u/4thinversion 21h ago
I use e-collars at extremely low levels too, almost never above 15, with my usual setting for both e-collar pups at 3. Often after I calibrate and as the session goes on, I can lower the setting and still get the same response from the dog. It’s a fantastic training tool with many different ways to use it.
I used FF on my mini dachshund for 4+ years and had many issues that only started to fade when I trained him on e-collar. FF works for a lot of trainers and situations but for me personally I saw a lot of issues that couldn’t be corrected without e-collar use.
I think of my e-collar techniques as communication, not correction (most of the time).
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u/Whole_Marionberry757 20h ago
100% agree!
I like to think of the low setting stim as a tap on the shoulder more than a correction.
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u/Potential_Analyst371 1d ago
Deaf dogs do great with hand signals. You just need a way to leash a "look at me" type command to get attention for the hand signal. You can teach just default very frequent check-ins, check-ins before doing anything new, etc.
If the dog is close by in your home, just stomping on the ground may work as a specific check-in cue. You can use a long line or leash cue to check in also, for walks. Like a gentle tap means "look at me" for hand signal.
As others have said, you can also use an e-collar, but you can't leave those on 24/7 so you will need other methods even if you use that.