photo credit: Vicky Darnell

Have you adopted a deaf dog or just found out that the dog that you adopted is deaf? Often people feel anxious, scared, and sad when they realize their dog is deaf. In fact, these emotions are pretty typical. People feel afraid and aren’t quite sure how to proceed. They feel like they are alone and that no one quite understands their current predicament.

Too, they may feel upset that they have found themselves in this situation with a dog without the ability to hear—which they might feel puts them at a disadvantage.

While these emotions are valid I can tell you that sharing your home and life with a deaf dog has many advantages. Thunderstorms, vacuum cleaners, and fireworks won’t cause distress in your house! Additionally, often visual (vs. verbal) cues are more relevant for dogs. That is, if you were to say, “sit” and gesture for your dog to put his bottom on the floor, the version of the cue that he’s actually responding to, were we to test it out, may be more likely the visual option.

So now that you have a deaf dog, where do you begin? Let’s frame our plan via the acronym CALM—Communication, Attention, Life Skills, Modify behavior. You can think of CALM as a way to remember the steps to help you move forward in an order which makes the most sense.

COMMUNICATION

Frequently people believe that you need to start with an official sign language such as ASL (American Sign Language) or BSL (British) or JSL (Japanese). However, the very first step needs to be to establish a communication tool. This means that you want to begin to condition a marker. With hearing animals this often takes the shape of a clicker or a verbal marker like the word, “good.” With a deaf dog the marker would be a visual (or tactile) one—like a “hand flash,” or “thumbs up” sign. Just as with an auditory marker, you need to be sure to pair the marker with something your dog finds reinforcing—every single time. This ensures that the marker retains its value.

ATTENTION

Next, you need to get—and keep–your dog’s attention. You can do this via both teaching a “look-at-me” cue as well as capturing (then shaping duration for) a check-in behavior. This means teaching your deaf dog to look at you as well as “catching” him when he looks at you. You want to make it worthwhile for your dog to make eye contact and you want to communicate that continued and periodic eye contact is a reinforcing behaivor for him. Keep in mind that behaviors that are reinforced are repeated, so you should reinforce eye contact frequently and consistently.

LIFE SKILLS

Now that you have an effective way to let your dog know when he performs behaviors that you like and want to see more of, plus he’s checking in with you regularly, you can begin to work on some key, important skills to help him navigate life in your home. Building block behaviors like targeting, where he touches a part of his body to a target, and stationing, where he learns to relax, calmly in a particular spot are important skills that you can begin to teach and reinforce early and often.

MODIFY BEHAVIORS

Finally, now that both your dog’s (as well as your own) skill sets are continuing to grow you might encounter some behaviors that you would prefer not continue. In this case, you first want to figure out why the behavior is present. Then you can sort a plan to change or modify the behavior. You want to rule out any medical cause for the behavior as a first step. After that you can work to teach incompatible or alternative behaviors that you can mark and reinforce. Consistently marking and reinforcing behaviors that you want to see continue helps to build up a strong reinforcement history—and behaviors which have a long history of reinforcement are those that you will see most frequently in the future, too.

Photo credit: Taylor Haze Jackson

Overall, sharing your life with a deaf dog doesn’t need to be difficult and can be very enriching. It really just involves a perspective shift. It is like putting on glasses for the first time where the world goes from fuzzy to clear and you realize it just took a slight adjustment to make things fall into place. The same is true with working with a dog without the ability to hear.

Even if you don’t have a deaf dog in your life, practicing some visual or tactile cues can help to expand your training repertoire and perhaps make your communication more effective overall.

Changing your perspective to using non-auditory communication and becoming more fluid and comfortable with communication, attention, life skills, and behavior modification tools will set everyone up for success!

photo credit Ashley Szews

Repeatedly cueing the behavior when your dog does not respond does not improve the efficiency of cues. 

“Come! Come! Come!” or the equivalent visual version of repeating the cue over and over actually serves to potentially weaken your cue and subsequently your dog’s reliable and rapid response.

If you cue a behavior and your dog does not react appropriately, do not cue it again. Instead, cue an easy alternative. For example, cue a behavior that your dog has a 99% chance of effectively performing—possibly a name recall, eye contact, collar grab, or a hand target. Then, stop your training session. Finish with this successful behavioral response and take a break while you consider what went amiss. 

If your dog was highly motivated by the reinforcer you were offering, had sufficiently practiced at the level of difficulty where you were working, and understood the cue you were communicating there would be no reason that she would not successfully comply. For this reason if you are struggling with your dog’s response to a cue, you might want to dissect the problem.

The first step is to always rule out any possible medical reason for behavior. Be certain that your dog is not experiencing any medical issues that might prevent her from being able to respond to the cue.

Having then ruled out any possible medical difficulties your next avenue is to address the behavior. It’s likely that the cue response problem lies with one of the following issues. 

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. The reinforcer is not strong enough.
            2. The environment is too distracting. 
            3. The dog does not understand the cue. 
            4. A combination of the above scenarios. 

Reinforcer

First, double check that the reinforcer that you have chosen is a “200” on a scale of 1 to 10 for your dog. In other words, does she really want to work for what you are offering? Your dog will demonstrate her preference via her response time and interest level. Think about how it might look different if you are offereing a piece of kibble vs. a piece of chicken.

Environment

Also, consider whether there might be environmental reinforcers that could simultaneously be competing at a stronger level. For example, in Blanca’s world chasing iguanas would trump cheese any day. Are there any other distractions going on in your training venue? Is this the first time working in this spot? Acknowledging the level of difficulty based on the distractions, which would include training in a novel environment, is a key part of training decisions.

Cues

Finally, think about your training plan. Have you sufficiently trained the cue for the behavior in the environment that you are asking for it to be performed? Did you build a strong foundation and a long reinforcement history with the cue? Did you start, first with shorter distances, lower distraction levels, and less duration? Did you then work towards increasingly more difficult versions and is your dog able to respond immediately and quickly to the cue each time? In other words is your cue under stimulus control?

Taking steps backwards and breaking down the over-all criteria for your behavior can enable you to gain gain traction and make progress. Split your criteria into small steps and celebrate (reinforce) the tiny approximations.

Let’s use a recall behavior as an example. Beginning right next to your dog is the key. Often working indoors where you can
control the environment and the level of distractions can help to get things started. Using higher level reinforcers as you increase your difficulty criteria  is an important consideration. For instance, when taking the training “on the road” or upping the distance you are working at you want to use those top level reinforcer options.

Be sure that your cue is clear and consistent and confirm that you have an effective marker in place which you predictably pair with a reinforcer every time. 

We are continuing to practice my dog Blanca’s recall and recently have begun working with more distance in the fenced tennis courts. However, we still have work to do should an iguana decide to appear ;)!

Does your deaf dog react to cars, bikes, scooters, other dogs, or people while out walking? Does your deaf dog  bark hysterically, pull on the leash, or jump up on you in response to these things while outside? If these questions are something your dog struggles with, this post is for you!

The answer is to use the tools of desensitization and counter conditioning to change your deaf dog’s conditioned emotional response (CER) –aka his reaction– to the situation.

DESENSITIZATION: What does it mean?

Desensitization is working at a pace that your dog is comfortable. How do you determine this pace? You will know that your dog is relaxed when he does not react inappropriately. If he responds by barking, lunging, or freezing this means that you are moving too fast, too close, or too soon.  Your dog will provide feedback in the form of his body language. If his behaivor indicates stress you need to make it easier for him to be successfully calm.

What does it look like in action?

Let’s say when your dog sees other dogs he pulls on the leash, barks incessantly, or otherwise demonstrates behaivors which indicate anxiety. You want to begin at a distance where he does not react in this manner.

This might mean parking at the far end of the parking lot, remaining in the car, and watching and waiting for a dog to pass far away in the distance. If your dog responds with the unwanted behaviors you are too close and need to move further back. 

When your dog can calmly look at the object of his anxiety—in this case a dog—and respond peacefully you will know you have begun at the right distance away. 

COUNTER CONDITIONING: What does it mean?

Counter conditioning is pairing something that your deaf dog finds high value and worthwhile—like a yummy treat—with the potentially scary “trigger” object. The order is key when doing this. You want the scary “trigger” to predict the treat vs. the other way around. This point is an important one to make sure to grasp as you don’t want treats to begin to predict the scary trigger.

What does it look like in action?

To use our dog reactive example, while incorporating desensitization and starting at a distance that your dog can respond calmly and remain below threshold, pair the sight of another dog with a meatball. 

In other words, your dog sees a dog without reacting and you immediately pop a meatball into his mouth. Over time your deaf dog will begin to associate the sight of another dog (or which ever other trigger we are talking about such as a car, bike, stroller, etc.) with good things occurring.

The next step is to cue or mark and reinforce an alternative behavior. This means that your dog sees the other dog and orients back to you. Often times the error that people make here is trying to ask for something too difficult. Skipping the first part above folks try to ask for a behavior like a “sit” and frequently cue the sit at a distance that is also too close. The dog can’t respond because he is already reacting to the trigger and many times people are at a loss as to how to handle the situation.

Instead, try an easier behavior such as your dog turning to focus on you. Mark and reinforce your dog turning back to you. This way the sight of another dog (or other trigger) becomes the cue for your dog to orient towards you. Now instead of barking, lunging, or pulling, your deaf dog will perform the incompatible behavior of focusing his attention on you instead. Be sure to you mark and reinforce this alternative behavior which you want to see more often.

To imagine what the whole scenario looks like, consider that you start off at the end of the parking lot (desensitization). Your deaf dog sees another dog and turns to you and you give your starfish hand flash (marker) and deliver a meatball (reinforcer). Viola! This new replacement reaction becomes more reinforcing and over time turns into your dog’s default response.

BEHAVIOR THAT IS REINFORCED IS REPEATED!

Eventually this new behavior will replace your deaf dog’s previous undesirable reaction. Think of every new chance to practice as an opportunity where you have the chance to get another rehearsal of the version of the behavior you want to see repeated. Keep in mind that patience and consistency will be the keys to turning this preferred reaction into your dog’s default behavior!