I feel that I am a responsible breeder. I have not breed a lot of dogs, I mainly did it when people I knew wanted a pup. Another one on the dogs that I sold last fall has come back to me. I love Jackson and he is not going anywhere. Max and Jackson get along very well. Padro came back to me because he tried to bite the owner and another family member. Knowing the dogs background I figured there must be a reason. I figured it out the first night. He is DEAF, I'm not sure how long he has been like this. He is too smart and behaves basically like a hearing dog. He was recently neutered, could that cause it? The biting just started. If you startle him he gets defensive. I am careful how I approach him from behind or how I wake him up. He is confused at not being able to hear. He is not sure if the other dogs are barking to play or to fight. I have him responding to hand signals already. I have 2 heelers now and cannot keep him. I took him to find him a home that he fits into. Now it will be more difficult. He is so sweet and smart, I cannot think of putting him down. If anyone can help him out, please contact me.
Jessie
9 comments:
We have a full house, so I can't give him a home, but I wanted to say that I have owned a deaf cat for 10 years, and my brother-in-law owns a deaf horse. Yes, it's a little different having an animal that is deaf, but I think you should still be able to find him a home.
I think you should look into what caused him to become deaf, though. That is extremely troubling. You don't think it was something his owners did to him, do you? I mean, if he got sick or something and that caused it you would think they would have noticed. And since you, as the breeder, can verify that he was not BORN deaf, what is left?
Aaww, Geeze, poor puppy, I'll check around........
I was wondering if something happened under sedation. According to the former owner the biting thing just happened. He is so sweet. If he is looking at you he basically understands what you want him to do. I wasn't completely sure he was deaf when I first handled him. It' almost as if he can read lips. I have lost over 30% of my hearing, so I can relate to his problem.
I haven't heard of anything like that ever happening, though of course that doesn't mean anything. I'd be especially surprised if something had happened under sedation that took the hearing in both ears. I'd talk to the vet, if I were you (or A vet, if you don't want to talk to the same thing), and see if it's possible.
Sometimes friends or family members will say to me, "Are you SURE your cat is deaf? He seems like he heard me just now." And I have to reassure them that, yes, he is 100 percent deaf. But that doesn't mean he can't interpret facial expressions or body language, or feel vibrations from really loud noises. I can usually get his attention by stomping on the floor...
Anyway, you should probably test the dog's hearing to see if there are certain sounds he does hear. He'll have to be facing away from you when you test the sounds, and you'll have to be careful that it's not the vibrations from the sound that he is "hearing." If you can determine that he still can hear certain ranges, it might be helpful when looking for a home for him.
Great advice Katarine. I'm sure he is 100% deaf. We have yelled at him in different tones while he sleeps and he doesn't move. Tap your foot on the floor close by and he jumps up looking around all confused. It had to be a gradual loss. I just talked to the former owner and she did not realize he was deaf. She thought he was being defiant because he listened to her husband. He probably could hear certain tones. Some voices I cannot hear at all. I cannot hear the words, only a sound. Everytime that I get tested my hearing is worse. Even if I come up with the thousands of dollars for digital hearing aids, sooner or later they will not help. Does your cat meow? I would think it would be like a child born deaf.
My cat doesn't meow... he SCREAMS. LOL! He has no clue about volume control, probably just goes by the vibration he feels in his vocal chords. He also meows (read: screams) at totally inappropriate times, such as when he is walking around aimlessly. Obviously he doesn't have a clue that he is making noise!
Yes, it sounds like the dog went deaf gradually, if he was listening to her husband. Chances are his voice probably carried more than hers did, or was on a frequency the dog could still hear at the time. Poor guy. My cat has no clue what he's missing, but your dog does. No wonder he gets so startled and confused!
Oh goodness -- deaf!! I have never heard of that. Perhaps if you contact a good vet university, like Purdue here in Indiana, they may be able to give you some advice. They may even know of a place where he cn be adopted out or something.....
We had a deaf puppy too but managed to figure it out in a couple of weeks. We could not keep him as we didn't have a garden and if we went to public places we needed to be able to call him back. So we had to find a new home for him. The difficulty is finding a suitable new home.
For lazy dogs, it is not so difficult, since one can keep them on a lead and they don't need a lot of exercise. However, we had an active working dog, so he needed a lot of space to run, yet where he could not get into trouble if his master could not call him back. In the end, we found someone with a fenced in farm. In your case, someone without dogs might be better.
On the plus side, even deaf dogs are seldom 100% deaf. Furthermore, they may hear better in some tones than others. So, perhaps you could train him not only to respond to hand signals but to a whistle (low tone) or a dog-whistle (high tone). Even just 'come here' would make him a much more manageable dog.
With sheep dogs, they teach them to respond to a range of different commands from a whistle. So, if he has some hearing in some tone, one might be able to train him to all the basic commands.
Just some ideas. It was 17 years ago that we had a problem and I've often thought of it since and what I could have done differently.
Doug,thanks for the idea of a dog whistle. It's worth a try. I think a vibrating collar might help too.
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