Dog Training Tips : How Do I Train a Deaf Dog
Hi, I’m Ty Brown with dogbehavioronline.com.
We’re here in Riverton, Utah today talking
about how to train a dog. The topic for today’s
discussion is how to train a deaf dog. Now
it’s very difficult but very important to
train a deaf dog. If you think about it, a
deaf dog is living in a pretty scary and strange
world to him. He has a lot of stimulation
going on and nobody’s there to help explain
what’s going on to him. And so it’s important
that you as a trainer of a deaf dog understand
some key points that are going to help your
dog navigate his way through a world that
can be somewhat scary. And so there’s several
key things that you’re going to want to do
when training a deaf dog. The first thing
you want to do is start out with a lot of
leash training. Now the leash is a great tool
because it’s an effective communicator. A
lot of people start out by trying to not use
the leash, but then they have no way to talk
to the dog, they have no way to communicate
with the dog. The leash is a physical bond
that you can have with your dog that can help
you explain the things that you want him to
do. Help him to sit, help him to come when
called. The second thing you want to do as
you’re starting your, as you’re starting working
with a deaf dog is to use that leash to accompany
it with some hand signals. Now dogs because
they can’t hear you need some way to understand
what you’re saying. You’re going to need to
use a hand signal. And people will often use
this for sit, this for down, this for come,
this for stay, this for no. And every time
you do a hand signal accompanying it with
something on the leash, for example, if I
wanted the dog to sit, I would do an upward
tug in the air as I gave the sit command.
If I wanted the dog to lie down on command,
I would use a downward hand signal as I accompany
that with some leash work so that it makes
sense to the dog what I’m trying to tell him.
Lie down. Good boy, stay. And in doing that,
the dog associates a physical act with the
hand signal. And with enough repetition, the
dog is going to start to associate the two
together and you can simply give the hand
signal and move away from the leash. The other
thing you’re going to want to use a lot of
when training a deaf dog is treats. Treats
are a great tool for a motivator, but they’re
also a great physical connection again between
you and your dog that you have that you can
use to communicate the ideas that you, and
the commands that you want your dog to do.
And so by using leash training, by using hand
signals and by using treats, you can effectively
train a deaf dog.
