Blind and Blind-Deaf Dogs' Voices ?
Subject: Observations and Data about Voices of Blind and blind-deaf Dogs //insights [Updated 18 Dec 2012]
Voices of Blind dogs are reported by owners as being very much like the ordinary voices of seeing dogs - barks, yips, and whines of ordinary dogs of their breed and age. However, because blind dogs are often relying on echoes of their own voice to figure out the objects, distances and "mapping" where they are, they are likely to "talk" conisderably more than do oridnary dogs. Many owners of Blind dogs reported that they decided it was better if the human talked to and for the dog a great deal, (and the human neighbors complained less!) rather than relying entirely on the blind dog's decisions of how much and how often to bark. A truly extraordinary feature of blind dog relations with their people is the shared deep loving bond and dog's trust.
Voices of Blind dogs are reported by owners as being very much like the voices of deaf (like deaf humans) dogs - unique phrases, yodels, moos and other creative sounds plus the usual barks, yips, and whines of ordinary dogs of their breed and age. Many of most blind-deaf dogs learns quickly to detect, and understand with their whole-body floppy or raised ears, whiskers, toes, and coat hair the vibrations of the floors, wall, and event the air (sound). [Research proved that humans technically have similar biological abilities (jargon - sensory modalities) but almost never learn an effective use.]
A few owners of Blind-deaf dogs reported relying entirely on the blind dog's decisions of how much and how often to bark or yip, such as the dog announcing that some salesperson was pounding on the front door, or that a terrible storm was sahking the entire house. A truly extraordinary feature of blind-deaf dog relations with their people is the shared deep loving bond, mutal creativity finding or inventing ways for living togethter happily. Reports make clear that a key feature is the willingness and ability of the human to trust the dog's intelligent and wishes as it learns to get along often at high speed despite ocassional "crashes" into people, other dogs or bits of furniture that somebody moved without telling the dog.
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We asked for help via the Internet consisting of observations from roughly 5,600 world-wide owners of blind, and/or blind-deaf dogs in gathering observation-reports of their dogs' behaviors. We appreciate objective descriptions people send of vocalizing by their blind or blind-deaf dogs. Those who have both seeing dogs and blind dogs, we especially appreciate comparisons of their voices and vocalizing.
Observations about when blind dogs use special voice sounds were helpful. For example: most newly blind dogs vocalize in a special way when they get confused, anxious and feel lost - indoors maybe in a long hallway or an unfamiliar room, or outdoors far from familiar things; When meeting new dogs or people; Taking a new route on a walk; When you've moved furniture in a room?
We emphatically do Not ask that you put your blind dog in distressing situations to gather data for us! We're interested in observations owners gather as you lead your normal daily life with your dogs. If you have videos or recordings, those are welcome.
Discussion of Observations Data
At least three observations were required for baseline credibility of “generic” vocalizing by blind or blind deaf dog populations.
Voices of ordinary dogs were ably described in books by scientists [S. Coren 2004, A. Miklosi 2007, Coppingers 2001]. Our direct observations confirmed the general reliability and consistency of their descriptions, despite the observations having been reported by a psychologist, ethologists, engineers or housewives. We did not find in the "generic" research catalogues of dog voices useful descriptions of the unusual vocalizing used by deaf and blind-deaf dogs. Further, no peer reviewed reports described the wide-band, high decibel special "deaf-dog bark" used by some hearing dogs to get the attention of their offically "BAER-deaf" dog-family members and human colleagues [Refn: HWG, June 2012]
Many deaf dogs added special sounds to their “breed standard”- traditional barks, whines, howls and growls. Dogs who were totally deaf (both ears) were described as apparently intentionally making very non-doggish cries or songs, such as yodeling, and "mooing." The research on deaf humans indicated that an inability to hear one’s own voice leads to difficulty in emulating the ordinary day to day tones, rates and other aspects of vocalizations of one’s own species. The observations of deaf dogs indicate similarity. We naturally wondered how many blind and blind-deaf dogs use special sounds when they are “mapping”, happy or worried?
Unfortunately in Europe it was impossible to find enough owners of blind dogs or blind-deaf to assist research with this. US owners of blind dogs and blind-deaf were already collecting and publicly describing their observations.
Physics of Sounds: A dog gets the sharpest, most geometrically precise “echo-images” from the highest pitch sounds. Women and children are best able to detect high pitch sounds, though dog-voices can go well higher than an ordinary person can hear. Extreme high pitches are very “local” because of rapid attenuation of their energy, with few useless echoes from next door rooms. Outdoors, the lower pitches reach farther, to get echoes from far fences and maybe detect others coming. ‘Swept’ frequency chirps that rise from low pitch to the highest possible are ideal for “imaging”: “Aheeeeee…” Swept chirps were used in high accuracy scanning military radar, and NASA radars.
Dogs newly blind were likely to do a lot of vocalizing (including barking) while awake, unless interrupted by humans. As each dog makes its mental “map” of its place, and integrated its acoustic-image maps with its scent based maps, barking usually become gradually less unless the dog was deliberately or accidentally rewarded for barking. A dog usually by itself makes fewer and quieter chirps. For the dog’s sake most owners slowly get the dog to use fewer quieter chirps.
Time-length of each chirp is short (perhaps tenths of a second) for mapping and to “see;” so that the echoes don’t overlap the outgoing chirps. Coon hounds were said to maybe have a few problems discriminating among the echoes when they worked in packs and voices of several were close in pitch. Puppies often used quick sets of three-chirps, then a pause, then three more chirps. (Technically, three is a prime number, almost never found in natural sound sequences, that helps a dog’s brain filter out their own chirps from wind sounds, noises and chirps of other dogs.
University researchers use expensive equipment that can “hear” dogs and even birds[1]; the best recorded also the ultrasonic pitches that most people can’t hear. In contrast, the standard BAER hearing tests of dogs are deficient because those tests only examine the frequency range used by most humans, and deliberately exclude examination of dog-hearing by means of other than inner-ear sensory modalities. Ordinary puppy and adult dog cries “I’m Lost- please help!” are like “swept frequency chirps” used by bats and certain types of military radar for mapping three dimensional space.
Important observations can be described in words well enough to answer many key questions. Because of the rarity of blind dogs compared to the US 77 million of ordinary dogs, affordable useful information practically can only be obtained with the help of owners of blind, blind-deaf (and deaf) dogs. Dr S Coren, 2004, discussed that sort of difficulty in his book “How dogs think”, asked and received help from a great many people. The Web blind-dogs-community likely has the best information: we shared message-observations about behavior and abilities, and what aids our dogs with their people for a good life.
[1]When birds hatched, each had a basic “kit” of songs, and soon revised it to be like the “proper” songs of their flock (like a kids’ chorus?). Each flock had its own “symphony.” Each digitally recorded set of voices of four puppies litters (over 20 puppies) showed all puppies had a basic “kit” of barks, yips and “I’m lost” that was similar. Each pup had its own set of personal lyrics that soon, within each litter, became similar to that of siblings. Recorded “symphonies” of each litter were so different from one litter to the next from the moment of birth that we could easily recognize each of the four litter’s versions.
Voices of Blind dogs are reported by owners as being very much like the ordinary voices of seeing dogs - barks, yips, and whines of ordinary dogs of their breed and age. However, because blind dogs are often relying on echoes of their own voice to figure out the objects, distances and "mapping" where they are, they are likely to "talk" conisderably more than do oridnary dogs. Many owners of Blind dogs reported that they decided it was better if the human talked to and for the dog a great deal, (and the human neighbors complained less!) rather than relying entirely on the blind dog's decisions of how much and how often to bark. A truly extraordinary feature of blind dog relations with their people is the shared deep loving bond and dog's trust.
Voices of Blind dogs are reported by owners as being very much like the voices of deaf (like deaf humans) dogs - unique phrases, yodels, moos and other creative sounds plus the usual barks, yips, and whines of ordinary dogs of their breed and age. Many of most blind-deaf dogs learns quickly to detect, and understand with their whole-body floppy or raised ears, whiskers, toes, and coat hair the vibrations of the floors, wall, and event the air (sound). [Research proved that humans technically have similar biological abilities (jargon - sensory modalities) but almost never learn an effective use.]
A few owners of Blind-deaf dogs reported relying entirely on the blind dog's decisions of how much and how often to bark or yip, such as the dog announcing that some salesperson was pounding on the front door, or that a terrible storm was sahking the entire house. A truly extraordinary feature of blind-deaf dog relations with their people is the shared deep loving bond, mutal creativity finding or inventing ways for living togethter happily. Reports make clear that a key feature is the willingness and ability of the human to trust the dog's intelligent and wishes as it learns to get along often at high speed despite ocassional "crashes" into people, other dogs or bits of furniture that somebody moved without telling the dog.
*** ***
We asked for help via the Internet consisting of observations from roughly 5,600 world-wide owners of blind, and/or blind-deaf dogs in gathering observation-reports of their dogs' behaviors. We appreciate objective descriptions people send of vocalizing by their blind or blind-deaf dogs. Those who have both seeing dogs and blind dogs, we especially appreciate comparisons of their voices and vocalizing.
Observations about when blind dogs use special voice sounds were helpful. For example: most newly blind dogs vocalize in a special way when they get confused, anxious and feel lost - indoors maybe in a long hallway or an unfamiliar room, or outdoors far from familiar things; When meeting new dogs or people; Taking a new route on a walk; When you've moved furniture in a room?
We emphatically do Not ask that you put your blind dog in distressing situations to gather data for us! We're interested in observations owners gather as you lead your normal daily life with your dogs. If you have videos or recordings, those are welcome.
Discussion of Observations Data
At least three observations were required for baseline credibility of “generic” vocalizing by blind or blind deaf dog populations.
Voices of ordinary dogs were ably described in books by scientists [S. Coren 2004, A. Miklosi 2007, Coppingers 2001]. Our direct observations confirmed the general reliability and consistency of their descriptions, despite the observations having been reported by a psychologist, ethologists, engineers or housewives. We did not find in the "generic" research catalogues of dog voices useful descriptions of the unusual vocalizing used by deaf and blind-deaf dogs. Further, no peer reviewed reports described the wide-band, high decibel special "deaf-dog bark" used by some hearing dogs to get the attention of their offically "BAER-deaf" dog-family members and human colleagues [Refn: HWG, June 2012]
Many deaf dogs added special sounds to their “breed standard”- traditional barks, whines, howls and growls. Dogs who were totally deaf (both ears) were described as apparently intentionally making very non-doggish cries or songs, such as yodeling, and "mooing." The research on deaf humans indicated that an inability to hear one’s own voice leads to difficulty in emulating the ordinary day to day tones, rates and other aspects of vocalizations of one’s own species. The observations of deaf dogs indicate similarity. We naturally wondered how many blind and blind-deaf dogs use special sounds when they are “mapping”, happy or worried?
Unfortunately in Europe it was impossible to find enough owners of blind dogs or blind-deaf to assist research with this. US owners of blind dogs and blind-deaf were already collecting and publicly describing their observations.
Physics of Sounds: A dog gets the sharpest, most geometrically precise “echo-images” from the highest pitch sounds. Women and children are best able to detect high pitch sounds, though dog-voices can go well higher than an ordinary person can hear. Extreme high pitches are very “local” because of rapid attenuation of their energy, with few useless echoes from next door rooms. Outdoors, the lower pitches reach farther, to get echoes from far fences and maybe detect others coming. ‘Swept’ frequency chirps that rise from low pitch to the highest possible are ideal for “imaging”: “Aheeeeee…” Swept chirps were used in high accuracy scanning military radar, and NASA radars.
Dogs newly blind were likely to do a lot of vocalizing (including barking) while awake, unless interrupted by humans. As each dog makes its mental “map” of its place, and integrated its acoustic-image maps with its scent based maps, barking usually become gradually less unless the dog was deliberately or accidentally rewarded for barking. A dog usually by itself makes fewer and quieter chirps. For the dog’s sake most owners slowly get the dog to use fewer quieter chirps.
Time-length of each chirp is short (perhaps tenths of a second) for mapping and to “see;” so that the echoes don’t overlap the outgoing chirps. Coon hounds were said to maybe have a few problems discriminating among the echoes when they worked in packs and voices of several were close in pitch. Puppies often used quick sets of three-chirps, then a pause, then three more chirps. (Technically, three is a prime number, almost never found in natural sound sequences, that helps a dog’s brain filter out their own chirps from wind sounds, noises and chirps of other dogs.
University researchers use expensive equipment that can “hear” dogs and even birds[1]; the best recorded also the ultrasonic pitches that most people can’t hear. In contrast, the standard BAER hearing tests of dogs are deficient because those tests only examine the frequency range used by most humans, and deliberately exclude examination of dog-hearing by means of other than inner-ear sensory modalities. Ordinary puppy and adult dog cries “I’m Lost- please help!” are like “swept frequency chirps” used by bats and certain types of military radar for mapping three dimensional space.
Important observations can be described in words well enough to answer many key questions. Because of the rarity of blind dogs compared to the US 77 million of ordinary dogs, affordable useful information practically can only be obtained with the help of owners of blind, blind-deaf (and deaf) dogs. Dr S Coren, 2004, discussed that sort of difficulty in his book “How dogs think”, asked and received help from a great many people. The Web blind-dogs-community likely has the best information: we shared message-observations about behavior and abilities, and what aids our dogs with their people for a good life.
[1]When birds hatched, each had a basic “kit” of songs, and soon revised it to be like the “proper” songs of their flock (like a kids’ chorus?). Each flock had its own “symphony.” Each digitally recorded set of voices of four puppies litters (over 20 puppies) showed all puppies had a basic “kit” of barks, yips and “I’m lost” that was similar. Each pup had its own set of personal lyrics that soon, within each litter, became similar to that of siblings. Recorded “symphonies” of each litter were so different from one litter to the next from the moment of birth that we could easily recognize each of the four litter’s versions.