Dear Faith,
I recently acquired a 12-year-old golden retriever named Daisy who is deaf. She’s very gentle and likes to walk and ride in the car. Though she’s not really interested in other dogs, she does get along with our dachshund and Lab mix. Sometimes Daisy just sits and looks at me and barks. I don’t know what she is trying to tell me, so we go for a walk. Any idea what she’s trying to say? Also, could you suggest some ways to communicate better with her and some interesting activities to play with her?
~ DOTING ON DAISY
Dear Doting,
Deaf dogs like to do many of the same activities that hearing dogs do. We can communicate with deaf dogs just as effectively as with hearing dogs, by using visual cues instead of our voices or a clicker sound. In fact, dogs can even be taught American Sign Language (ASL). DeafDogsRock.com has more information on the subject. A good resource for how to do ASL signs is signingsavvy.com.
Let’s use teaching Daisy to sit as an example. You would lure her into the sit position in the same way that you would a hearing dog, by moving your hand (with a treat in it) in front of Daisy’s face and up over her head. When she sits, she gets the treat. Do this about five times, then do the same hand motion without a treat in that hand, but when she sits, give her a treat from the other hand. Practice this until Daisy is consistently sitting when you make the hand motion.
The next step is to decide what sign you want to use for “sit.” Give that sign to Daisy, followed immediately by the hand signal she already knows. Repeat until she’s quickly sitting just for the sign itself. You can use this process for teaching Daisy many other cues, such as “down” and “wait.” If you’ve trained a pet with a clicker sound, replace the clicker with the flash of a penlight or a thumbs-up. The Best Friends website has a number of training plans that give step-by-step instruction. Go to bestfriends.org/resources and search for “training plans.”
As far as activities go, we have many enrichment ideas on our website that would be great for Daisy. Nose work is especially suitable for older dogs, and you and Daisy can jump right into it without much prep work or specialized equipment.
Regarding the barking scenario, it sounds like what we call “demand barking.” Because you always walk her when she barks, you are likely reinforcing that behavior. If you don’t mind that she communicates her desires to you in this way, then I see no reason to change it. However, if it bothers you, you can stop reinforcing the barking by redirecting her to something else for a bit before taking her for a walk.