How to Call Your Deaf Dog

Our dog, Sara, had normal hearing until the age of about 12. She's a beagle mix, and always had a little stubborn streak, so she'd often ignore us when she was interested in something else.

But we began to notice that she wasn't responding to us at other times as well. She wasn't the first one to notice kitchen sounds, or to bark at someone driving up to the house.

She did, however, keep a close eye on the other dog, and then follow along, We thought it was just because the other dog, a bouvier, was the leader and Sara was following the alpha dog.

We now know that she had been watching the bouv for cues about what was going on. Her world had become quiet.

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Sara learned the recall command a a puppy, along with the hand signal that goes with it. If you never really taught your dog the Come command, you can still work with her. As long as your dog is healthy and able, it's not too late to teach her a new trick! And you will find that training helps you reconnect with your dog, too. They love the attention. (More on this a little later...)

The hand signal we used to call our dogs was a sweeping gesture with one hand, from out at your side, towards your chest. As it turns out, this was far more useful than we realized it would be when we were training her so many years ago. Once we realized she couldn't hear us anymore, we took advantage of that hand gesture right away, and she seemed quite pleased that we could still call her.

At night, though, we had to figure a way to get her attention - sweeping your hand in the dark really doesn't work! We started by flashing the flashlight towards her to get her attention, then giving her the gesture when she looked at us. By pairing the flash with the gesture she already understood, she learned a new recall command!

If your dog never learned a formal recall command, that's OK. Whether you realize it or not, you've probably taught her a gesture anyway. We often use the same behaviors with our dogs, so just think about how you call your dog. Do you wave your hand? Maybe pat your leg? Try using whatever gestures you normally would use, paired with a flash of the light. Your dog already knows your body language, so by adding the light when you "call" her, she will learn what you mean by flashing the flashlight.

Sometimes we don't even have to use the flashlight. We can simply flash the porch light and she will come - provided she's in a cooperative mood, that is. (And our other dog has also learned to come with we flash the lights! Bonus!)

This is really convenient on cold winter nights. We just stick the flashlight out the door, flash twice, and come the dogs I've even flashed the light out a window a few times, and they came in.

Sara is much happier now. I really think she's happy that we have found a way to communicate with her again, and I find that she watches us more closely now, looking for anything else we might want to "say" to her.

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