ChasingRainbows
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- Sep 5, 2013
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I am a hearing person and I recently discovered that my 4 month old puppy is deaf. She does not respond to any sounds. Never has. Just vibrations. I know a very small amount of ASL but I am studying it and hoping that I will be able to "talk" to her and be successful in training her using ASL. So far I am working on her name (Maisie. I don't spell it out,I just make an M and "nod" my hand twice), come, good girl, and no. I want to teach her basic commands as well as toy, mommy, daddy, bone, food, and the names of my other dogs. She is a hound (beagle and redbone coonhound) so she would be hard to train anyway because she is so focused on her nose. Her being deaf just makes it harder. She glances up at me occassionally but never long enough for me to get out more than one sign at a time. Am I taking on an impossible task? I really don't want her to be a ~70 lb. dog visitors don't like because she has no manners or training. I'll love her no matter what and I'm glad I wound up with her (her mom was dumped when she was pregnant and the people who found the mom didn't want the puppies..Maisie was extremely underweight and had worms when I got her). If she wound up at a shelter she probably would have gotten put down just for being deaf. I tell everyone who meets her that there is nothing wrong with her, she just can't hear. You can talk to her like she's a normal dog (just don't get upset with her when she doesn't obey a command), and you can play with and love on her like a normal dog. She's my sweet little Miss Maisie Hound.
Sorry for any spelling or grammatical errors..I have a new phone that I am still trying to get used to...
Sorry for any spelling or grammatical errors..I have a new phone that I am still trying to get used to...