DeafDogsForever
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    • Bonding & Reflexes>
      • Why of Basics
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  • Deaf
    • Deaf Dog US Populations
    • Adapting to Deafness
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    • Voices of Deaf Dogs
    • A Deaf Dogs Tragedy
    • Frequent Questions>
      • Pg1 FAQs
      • More Frequent Qs
      • Old Dog FAQs
      • Some Breed Communications
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  • Blind
    • Blind Dog US Populations
    • Behavior,Biology,Origin>
      • Why Gene -Blindness?
    • Adaptive "Seeing"
    • Frequent Qstns?
    • Climbing & 'clock' Confusion
    • Obsessive "Flies" Chasing
    • Dog-dog Bumping- OK or Not?>
      • Nose and face bumping
      • Whirling & Poking OK?
    • Blindness Causes?
    • You Speak, They Gesture
    • Misery & Companions
    • Blind & Blind Deaf Voices
  • Your Story
    • Adult meets pup
    • Blind dog Toys
    • Lost nose-ability?
    • Chrystal; A Deaf Puppy
    • Blind Dog's Story
    • Newly Blind
    • A Story History of Dals
    • Deaf Puppy-Table
    • Dog Escape Artists
    • For DCA & AKC
  • Truth & Science
    • Tragedy- Marketing, Errors & Fraud?
    • DCA Board Ethics Violations?>
      • Why Slaughter & Stigma?
      • Investigated Scare-Stories & Myths
      • Crit-Review DCA Red Book
      • ? ROI Basis for Killing Deaf Puppies
      • Sample Purebred Population Trends
    • BAER Concept Flaws
    • Mutts Business AKC Decisions Study
    • Dog "Defects"?
    • Aggression?
    • Koan-Proverbs
  • Reviews-blog
    • Book&Web-site Reviews>
      • Critique Dr S book 2011 Chp1-2
      • Crit-Rvw Chps 3-4 Forms-Inherited
      • Crit-Rvw Chps 5-6-7
      • Crit-Rvw Chp 8,Notes
      • Major Flaws of LSU/BAER/DCA Dog Behavioral Research
      • Consequences-trends
    • Who can do Science?
    • Blog
    • Who were Dr E, T E, ..?
    • Who are 'we'?

Deaf, Blind and Blind-deaf Dogs Forever!
(Lots more pages are under the topic-headers: see a clickable "Contents" at bottom of this page)

This is a journalistic-science & research-review site dedicated to deaf dogs, blind dogs and blind-deaf dogs and to helping owners with their dogs in the best way.

Pages are updated as often as new useful information becomes available to us.  You're invited and welcome to contact us with information, your dog-observations, stories and questions that you care about for deaf, blind or blind-deaf dogs. 

This Site was slightly updated on July 30, 2014.  Rapid progress is being made in the science of ordinary dog behaviors and abilities, but sadly few or no researchers seem to publish results for deaf or blind dogs and their people.  However, there has been a great increase of the numbers of Sites about deaf dogs, so we recommend Google (or other) searches.



In our opinion the most useful "discovery" is that many or most genetically deaf dogs were reported by their owners as recovering or getting significant improvement after several years of age, if the black parts of the dogs' coat become darker and perhaps more dark spots appear through outer white hair.  (Our formerly nearly all white Border Collie began t0 show ghostly dark spots at age 3 years.)  Further, as mentioned on this site, any dog that is in reasonably good health possesses several ways to detect (hear) mechanical waves (sound) such as those of human feet causing floor vibration, trucks moving on nearby streets, and air-blasts of fire-crackers.  And, Blind dogs often live remarkably happy lives with people who love them - both the d0gs and their people adapt to each other other's unique way of life.// The World of Deaf dogs and Blind dogs can be far richer and happier  than we imagined when we began this web site.

To aid non-science persons for the best care of their dogs, we mostly skipped academic style, cumbersome academic references and tedious lists of academic credentials.  Immense efforts were made to ensure accuracy.  Scientific jargon had to be sacrificed often to offer more understandable substance to as many people and their dogs as possible.

Because...   A deaf or blind or blind-deaf dog is as good a forever companion as an ordinary dog, and the world needs to understand.  When we began building this site, we were aware that when dogs become blind or deaf (from any of many causes) most of them happily learn and can sense mechanical vibrations (sound) from any or all of as many as eight or nine of their biological skills for that.  Their noses are also a valuable aid for knowing where they are in getting about.   Blind-deaf dogs also usually with the aid of their kind humans can enjoy a remarkably good doggish quality of life.  For the moment there is more here about deaf dogs than about blind dogs and blind-deaf dogs and their people.  We improve that with the help of visitors and readers.  Many people contributed and many expressed appreciation for insights and new information in these pages. 

We hope you find what you seek, perhaps learn new useful information, and come back sometimes to see what's new, tell a story, ask a question or share observations of your dogs.   There is much here to be seen or told.  Some of it is surprising and contrary to "official" popular notions and superstitions: the people most knowledgeable of these things are often those of us living day to day with our deaf, blind or blind-deaf companions.   Thanks for visiting us, because here's the real thing:  

1. It’s a dog, with a unique personality, with its breed and it's breed traits,  and

2. Blind dogs can learn to navigate by smells, mechanical vibrations (sound) and echoes of sounds, much like bats, dolphins and some blind humans.

3. Deaf to human voices dogs lack the human-like ways of hearing human voices, with their ordinary ears. BUT all deaf dogs, blind and blind-deaf dogs use as many as non-ordinary-human eight or nine ways to sense mechanical vibrations (sound.)  Humans mostly use just one style of hearing, with our ordinary ears, but dogs use more skills than humans do.

4. Research from the years 2000 through 2013 on humans & other species showed that many deaf and-or blind dogs use secondary ways (alternative modes of sense-perception) that dogs have from birth.  Many dogs [and a few humans!] sense mechanical vibrations (sound) as a coarse kind of "vision" for mapping and getting about safely, at amazing speeds.   Dogs can be far more versatile than humans in adapting, but they often need a little time - often months.

We're tracking advances as widely as we can to help deaf, blind and blind-deaf dogs, and their people to live well.   Major advances of many sorts continue, leading to better training and aid to deaf, blind and blind-deaf dogs.  Often they can adapt by using their amazing variety of senses to safely enjoy life.   Reports from deaf dog owners, blind dog and blind-deaf dog owners, and experiments with humans and other species confirm that animals and birds can adapt their nervous system and senses to offset losses of ordinary (human-like) hearing and sight.  Biological abilities of that sort were observed and confirmed, (such as "synesthesia"), among blind and-or deaf.

We're interested in stories or questions of owners or prospective owners of deaf or blind or blind-deaf dogs. If you have observations of your dogs, a story to tell or a question to ask, please use our contact page or blog to tell us. You will receive an answer! We're gathering data about such dogs and their experiences, to learn ever more for these dogs' and their humans' lives.  We have an academically qualified dog behaviorist and others with us who'll answer questions about dogs to the best of our ability.

Messages of actual observations by people living with blind and/or deaf dogs are invited and highly valued and often stimulate new studies to verify (or not) such observations.   Laboratories, we realize, aren’t sufficient to confirm or deny the reality or authenticity of many of the factual observations of owners. 

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&   Table of Contents (January, 2012)   &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
  • Home
    • Unsolved Challenges
    • Manifesto (Declaration)
    • Dog Breeds Humor
    • Contact us
  • Training
    • Bonding & Reflexes
      • Why of Basics
    • New Puppy
    • Soft-Mouth/No-bite
    • No Eating Bad Things
    • Non-aggression
    • Opinions-Training Styles
    • Dog Language Samples
    • Teething-Young
  • Deaf
    • Deaf dog US Population
    • Adapting to Deafness
    • Dogs' Humor
    • Voices of Deaf Dogs
    • A Deaf Dogs Tragedy
    • Deaf Dogs Frequent Questions FA Qs; More FAQs, Older Dog FAQs 
    • BAER Business Opportunities
    • Facts Against Hoax-Scare Myths
  • Blind
    • Blind Dog US Populations
    • Behaviors,Biology, Origins
        - Why Immune blindness
    • Frequent Questions, More FAQS, Older Dog FAQs
    • Blind-dog "Seeing"
    • Climbing & 'clock' Confusion
    • OCD-Obsessive "Flies" Chasing
    • Dog-Dog Bumping
    •     - Nose or face bumping causes
    •     - Whirling
    • Causes of blindness  ?
    • You Speak, They Gesture
    • Misery & Companions
    • Blind & Blind Deaf Voices
  • Your Stories 
  •      Chrystal; A Deaf Puppy
  •     A Story History of Dals
  •     Deaf Puppies raised under the Kitchen Table 
  •     Who were Dr Eiesenbart, Til E, etc?
  •     For DCA & AKC
*     Verify-Science
  • Tragedy- Marketing, Errors & Fraud?
  • BAER Concept Flaws
  • Investigated Scare-Stories & Myths
  • Mutts Business AKC Decisions Study
  • Dog "Defects"?
  • Aggression?
  • Koan-Proverbs
  • Reviews  (Of books, etc.) 
  •     Books
  •      Blog
  •       Who were Dr Eisenbart , TE, ...
  •       - Sean Senechal - You Speak, They Gesture 
  •       Who are 'we'?
-- Much of what we learned was good for helping deaf, blind and blind-deaf dogs to live with humans
(and the reverse!).
Definitions: (see also Wikipedia for details and textbooks of Physics, etc. as they apply to all species)
Sound               Mechanical Pressure-Density-velocity waves (vibrations) in gas, liquid or solids
Hearing            Detection and use of mechanical vibrations (sound)
Light                 Electromagnetic wave-particles-vibrations
Seeing               Detection and use of electromagnetic vibrations (light) and/or  hearing of  mechanical waves for mapping, etc.

                                                                        Dogs continue to learn during their whole lifetime:
                                                                                  none are so deaf that they refuse to "hear" 
                                                                                       or so blind that they refuse to "see"
                                                                                      or fail to  learn by any way that they can.
                                                                                                                                                           Anon