Dear Dogs Today Think Tank
The Brittany lives and loves to run – fast, far and wide. At the blink of an eyelid it can be in the next parish and, before whistle reaches lips, the next county. Annie at 11 and a half years remains thus, maybe a little slower. In the 18 months before we bought her, she was neglected in many ways, her natural instinct to hunt being allowed to heighten and reinforce.
Over very many years of perseverance, and huge amounts of rewards, we trained her to be fairly acceptably controllable by voice, whistle and body signals. We believe she can lip read in some circumstances.
In the last few weeks she no longer hears voice or whistle. With such a busy breed, body signals are of only limited use. The vet has confirmed her deafness is age related.
We have tried a loud hailer but she is so deaf that its use is negligible if at all. It is also heavy and cumbersome for me so is ruled out. We are seriously considering a vibrating collar but want to learn more before investing in something else which does not prove effective.
To keep Annie on even a Flexi retractable lead all the time is an affront, tantamount to cruelty to such a vibrant, vivacious, energetic dog, even diminishing her acquired, now almost confident, happy relationship with the numerous humans and dogs whom she meets on walks.
We do have safe areas where we could let Annie off lead but these areas are shared with others (including the aged, children of all ages and those who have some physical or cognitive disability, dogs on leads for various reasons, dogs under control, horseriders) who too have the right to the peace and enjoyment undiminished by an active Brit.
We dream there might be something to help restore Annie’s hearing to even a small degree. Does anyone have any practical, considered and useful advice to enable us to give Annie freedom in safe places yet keep her under the proper degree of lead free control.
Assuming that Annie will have to be kept on the lead all the time, is it known whether the flat-shaped webbing tape Flexi retractable lead weighs the same as the equivalent length of a corded Flexi retractable lead. We have a corded Flexi retractable extending lead 8 metres in length. We would love to find a longer one; any knowledge of something longer would get the Brit appreciation award!
Over my 74 years, this is the fifth dog to go deaf in older age. However it has never been much of a problem before. But this is a Brittany!
Mrs Audrey Powell
I'd suggest Barry Eaton's book(let) 'Hear Hear', which contains brilliant info on training deaf dogs. You can use a longline, while you train the recall. Dancing like a monkey can help get attention (even if you do feel silly) & raising arms in Y (think YMCA dance).
You can teach recall to a torch (flick on & off). Or you can use a pager collar. With the pager you to have to spend time getting the dog used to the vibrate sensation (pair it up with the feeding of tasty treats and go really slowly) so the dog doesn't get scared. Once the dog is comfortable with the vibrate sensation, you can work in the garden to train recall.
They sell pager collar here, it is sound & vibration (NOT shock collar one).
http://www.speedwellstar.com/product_info.php?cPath=23_31&products_id=325
Good luck.
Kirsty MacQueen, via email
Age related deafness is quite common in any breed of dog and usually I would advise teaching visual commands as well as vocal commands so if a dog does go deaf later in life, the visual commands take over. As far as vibrating collars are concerned, like most gadgets for dogs, there is no guarantee it will work, so please don't buy one with the definite view that it will help with the training. It may. It may not. It may work for a while but then Annie may get used to the vibration and ignores it. I tried such a collar on my deaf dog when she was about 4 years and she really didn't like it and would back away if she saw it. I never used again. The other thing to bear in mind is that, as Annie is 11 years old, anything novel, like a vibration, may scare her. It might not - but it might. So it's very much a suck it and see situation. If you do get one then you must get Annie conditioned to it as one would condition a dog to a clicker so she associates the collar with something rewarding. Instead of click/treat you would buzz/treat. In my opinion, these collars should be used to get the dog's attention. It replaces calling the dog's name as one would to get a hearing dog's attention. She'll look round at you, then you give a visual command to what you want her to do. It will serve a much better purpose if that's what she's conditioned to. Most owner's usually want it as a convenient recall, but just as hearing dogs can selectively go deaf when called, so a deaf dog could selectively ignore the collar, and then the collar is useless. If you want to try a vibrating collar, as Kirsty says, The Speedwell Star vibrating collar is only £30, while other collars tend to be nearer £100 and have a shock facility which you definitely do not want.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to train Annie to pay attention and respond to a visual recall command, you will have to start from scratch and start in the garden by teaching her to go to each member of your family using the same recall signal. When she is reponding reliably, try the same approach in a different, but safe, environment. When on a walk, you must ineract with her constantly. Play with her with her favourite toy and change direction frequently to kep her guessing where you are going. This is a gradual process and must progress at Annie's pace. This is explained in more detail in my book, 'Hear, Hear'.( www.deaf-dogs-help.co.uk ) In the meantime, you might like to try a training line which is much longer than an extendable lead. While the training line gives Annie a bit more freedom it does tend to get caught up in long grass or bushes - but it's something to work with.
Certainly breed-specific behaviours need to be taken into consideration before letting a deaf dog off-lead but I have successfully trained my own Border collie, other deaf collies and Jack Russells, both of which have behaviours that may be difficult to control, so I appreciate your concern with Annie. But anything is possible if you work at it and give it time.
Barry Eaton