Charlie's visit to the vet was this morning. He was such a good boy as they took out his stitches, tested him for worms of all kinds (and was all negative, yay!) and gave him his rabies shot. Unfortunately, they also determined that Charlie is indeed deaf. Jon and I had been pretty sure of it before now, but the vet confirmed it. It's crushing to find that your baby has some serious genetic defect.
But I loved him from the moment I saw him and I'm not giving up on him. I've already researched deafness in dogs and was pleased to learn that they can be trained just as easily as hearing dogs using hand signals instead of your voice. He's going to start training classes in the next week or so.
Even so, I'd like to ask, has anyone out there had experience with a deaf dog? Tips? Advice? Maybe a solution to stop Charlie from thinking I'm a chew toy?
Law school. Marriage. New town. Let's see if she survives.
4 comments:
In my experience, the best way to get your dog to stop chewing on you is to get another dog (but keep your present dog, of course). We had a lot of problems with our pound puppy chewing on us until we got her a friend. Neither of them have intentionally bitten either of us since then (and that was three years ago). Desiree doesn't like that they chew on each other, but it's kind of endearing.
Cover your hands (or whatever he's chewing) with something foul - pros reccommend bitter apple.
You can also scent/flavor something he's allowed to chew with something fabulous - like certain kinds of chew toys that you can put treats inside that encourage dogs to spend some time working on that toy, not on your hands.
I just got him one of those Kong toys that you can stuff with treats. He likes it already and I haven't even added the treats!
Jeremy, as much as I would LOVE to have another dog, we unfortunately don't have the space. Or the time or energy or money. Haha. Charlie is a year old but he's wearing us out! But I'll think about it for the future - deaf dogs do well with doggie friends that can hear. So maybe someday. :)
For a dog of Charlie's size, he really won't leave puppyhood until he's 2 to 3 years old. That's when he'll really start to mellow out and leave some of his more annoying habits behind.
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