A Deaf Puppy Growing Up Under the Kitchen Table
About Deaf Wee Puppies and Juveniles
Ear-Hearing is apparently important to early socializing of puppies: As described by Scott and Fuller, 1965, puppies learn from each other about the age of three to eight weeks that they must use a soft-mouth [gentle-inhibited bite]. K Lorenz, “King Solomon’s Ring”1952 and “Man Meets Dog” 1953 mistakenly believed that an inhibited bite was exclusively an evolution-fixed action pattern (FAP) genetic instinct like imprinting among certain birds. He was wrong, as documented in 1965 by Scott and Fuller.
If a puppy is unable to hear the screams of its play-victims, and its own screams when play-bitten with needle sharp puppy teeth, it may less quickly learn to use an inhibited bite. The othe puppies will usually refuse to play with any puppy who fails to quickly learn to use a "soft-bite." Further, if refusing to play-share doesn't deter excessive roughness, the siblings may "storm" the delinquent en-mass to make very clear that too much rougness will get its fair "reward" in-kind. Thus a deaf puppy is at risk of being less well socialized, abused by sibling puppies as a rough social deviant, and either timid and passive or oppositely chasing and rough to other puppies. A knowledgable dog-mother with her third litter of puppies used parenting to instill proper social behavior in her hearing or deaf delinquent puppies, or a knowledgeable human can participate in the parenting to ensure all of the puppies learn to use an inhibited bite and treat each other kindly.
Unfortunately neither puppies nor human babies arrive with an owner’s manual, so occasional first time mothers are less effective in educating their offspring to use an inhibited bite and play nicely together without bullying. Our experience with Border Collies suggested that at any age dogs are able to learn an inhibited bite and appropriate dog-dog behavior. However, a 100 pound human trying to teach a 90 pound juvenile dog to stop doing excessively fierce nipping and biting may perhaps find herself engaged in a difficult process if the dog has already learned to enjoy controlling the actions of other dogs and humans. In such instances, regardless of whether the dog can hear or is deaf, the aid of a professional trainer accustomed to educating poorly socialized large dogs should be sought.
Startle Reflex Education: Dogs and humans who are unexpectedly touched, or even worse – kicked - might understandably react with their ‘startle reflex’ by looking around and possibly instinctively defending itself against an apparent ‘attacker.’ Puppies can quickly learn that sudden noises and touches typically are a sign that something good is about to happen, such as breakfast with mother - that being startled is good.
Properly raised puppies teach each other to react with inhibited bites to sudden touches, and that even being "knocked over" isn’t a satisfactory excuse to severely bite somebody. Puppies we observed began about an age of four weeks playing learning-games that we called “puppy bumping.” Ocassionally for play, a puppy ran across the floor to collide with and knock an unsteady sibling off its feet. Sometimes a ‘tussle’ ensued with the puppy play-attacker and the play-victim engaging in much mutual vocalizing, nips and exchanges of ear, fur and tail pulling.
Thus a deaf puppy can be educated by its siblings to react enthusiastically and happily by nipping at a presumed play-attacker when as a “play-victim” the deaf puppy is startled from a sound sleep, or caught in a position where it didn’t see the "attacker" arriving. A deaf puppy socialized to manage its startle reflex, won't have a tendency to embarrass itself by nipping at a friendly human who touches it to wake it up for the pup's dinner. Deaf dogs as reported on the Internet were easily educated that any sudden disturbance was probably a clue that something nice was about to happen.
An exception was of course the reports of deaf puppies and juveniles who were taught by a human that a startle-sudden disturbance means they were being kicked or injured. Eventually perhaps mistreated puppies might be instinctively driven to defend themselves, run away, or die. People with deaf dogs DELIBERATELY touch to wake and train their dogs to wake up happy and to never wake up and nip anyone.
‘Velcroing’ by deaf dogs and seeking to calm their startle reflex: Our deaf dog, and according to reports on the Internet most other deaf dogs, discovered a technique that humans call ‘velcroing.” Typically a deaf dog as a juvenile, and some as adults, choose when sleepy or asleep to keep direct physical contact with their favorite human or a chair the person might be sitting on. The deaf dog has learned that the slightest movement of the person or the chair signals that something interesting is about to happen, so the dog should wake up and become alert [The world needs more ‘lerts.] Many dogs later learn that lying across a door, if that is the main exit and entrance will ensure that the dog knows when its human goes past. Some humans and other dogs will learn to play ‘games’ on the deaf dog by sneaking stealthily past the sleeping dog, leaving the deaf dog to awake later and wonder where the others went. In addition to great awareness of mechancial vibrtions in the floors, walls and the air, deaf dogs are typically much attuned with 'air movements'. For example, if the dog is in a crate and an outside door is opened, the dog will likely wake up because it senses the changed air movement and fresh smells. [See "Adapting to Deafness" of this Web site.]
Non-ear hearing by deaf dogs: Our deaf dog at about eight months age was observed in the presence of talking humans to stand on a sofa with her forehead lowered to press against the cushion she was standing on. She had discovered that she could detect and ‘understand’ vibrations (sounds) by touching with whiskers or a paw or standing on vibrating surfaces. Later she discovered that she could ‘listen’ to the sound - vibrations of a telephone-voice-recorder when she played back the recorded messages, with her chin touching the top of the machine. Similarly she ‘listened’ to a small radio by placing her chin on top of its case. She never placed her chin on those objects unless they were playing voices or radio at a significant loudness. As anyone might know who observed ripples on the surface of a beverage in a flimsy paper cup, or felt with their finger tips the vibrations of a small radio’s case, etc. - vibrations of sounds can cause touch and air-movement pressure - touch sensations by moving their skin, fur/hair/clothing, external portions of ears, and of course dog-whiskers.
Thus owners sometimes hope that their deaf-dog has recovered some human-like inner-ear cochlea-cilia hearing, when actually their dog has cleverly discovered that various mechnaical vibration and pressure -touch sensations of their body parts have "sounds" of their environment.
Similarly, some scientists reported that many blind humans routinely extract information about their surroundings from the modulation and arrival times of mechanical vibrations (sounds) received directly from a source versus those vibrations-sounds echoed (reflected) from the surroundings. Convincing reports of hound dogs using radar-like location- "bark-echo" hearing at night were posted on the Internet in 2010.
Such auxuliary (not by their inner-ear) detection of mechanical vibrations (sounds) by a deaf dog can be like inner-ear-hearing if the source of the sounds is a human or another dog at close range- perhaps several feet away. For example, I also observed our deaf dog being summoned by her mother who stood behind the deaf dog at a distance of about several feet and barked several times with increasing loudness until her daughter looked over her own shoulder to see her mother, and hopped up to follow her away. Combined touch-skin detection of the vibration (sounds) and olfactory-smell detection of her mother’s dog-breath might have alerted the deaf lass that it was time to move on.
Dog-Human Sign Languages: Puppies learn to understand the body-language, vocalizing and odors of other dogs, and their humans, much as human babies learn to understand adult humans and other children. A deaf puppy necessarily omits learning the meaning of inner-ear sounds, and thus tends to focus on understanding body language, including hand gestures of humans, and olfaction-smelling. Thus deaf puppies are predisposed to learn from humans a “gesture language” such as American Sign Language (ASL) or one of ASL’s international variants. A fine trainer, Virginia Broitman, taught our deaf dog all the basic signs.
Routinely deaf dogs acquire at least an elementary language capability consisting of verbs [get, come, lie-down, etc], nouns such as ball, Frisbee, rope, names and so forth; and adjectives that describe a specific noun-object such as for example “short” rope, and “long” rope. Complex gestures such as those describing a path to be run to get a specific object are routine. Thus human communication to deaf dogs with a version of sign language is common. ASL is not international, as it is mainly used in America and Canada. Australia and Britain have a different style of hand-sign language. In Australia it is called AUSLAN and the hand-signals are different than ASL.
Humans also use their own obedience hand signals, and invent ‘made up’ hand signals. ONE HANDED signals are best, to always keep one hand free for holding a leash, groceries, etc.
In addition to the ‘classic’ hand sign languages, deaf dogs expect from their humans the important face and body language, e.g. HAPPY, relaxed, smiling face and a very loose fluid body. Conversely ‘scolding’ is usually done by just using ANGRY, pinched face, glaring eyes and a very ‘stiff’ body posture. Deaf dogs, like hearing dogs, carefully watch and respond to face and body language, before we usually even realize.
Reciprocal communication to humans by gesture signing of dogs is feasible and can be routine although such training of dogs is sparsely documented. The work and publications by Sean Senechal should be consulted for the best of such research currently known to me. Owners of deaf dogs reported many casual anecdotes of their customary reliance on ad hoc informal dog-“sign-gesture”/“body-language”-language dialects mutually developed among the associated humans and dogs.
Dog-dog reciprocal communication using body-language is routine, although some hearing dogs are said to momentarily experience a little apparent confusion about unusual or unorthodox verbalizing by deaf dogs when initially encountering a deaf dog. Our hearing BC and her deaf daughter BC illustrated that.
When my deaf BC used inappropriate ‘fierce’ vocalizing at first when engaging in rough rope-tug play with me, its hearing mother BC scolded the deaf dog, until after several events the deaf dog softened its vocalizing.
Self-Awareness that a deaf dog is ‘different’: Our daughter, who is deaf in one ear, self-diagnosed her uni-deaf (monaural) capability at age six years. Our deaf BC as a juvenile between the ages of two months and 18 months occasionally exhibited behavior that implied that she was aware that she had different sensory and perhaps physical features. She also exhibited one of the occasional anecdotes reported of deaf dogs’ behaviors: a fascination with the ears of humans. Usually the subject human reported sitting or reclining when the deaf dog gently investigated in detail the ears of its human. Later at random intervals the action was repeated in a way indicating that the deaf dog was deliberately repeating the actions as ‘play.’
Our deaf juvenile BC routinely accepted that other dogs have an “extrasensory perception” that permits other dogs to understand what humans want done - commands and events - without looking at the humans although the deaf dog is apparently unaware of how that is communicated from the human to the other dog(s). Our deaf BC frequently looks briefly at her humans and the other dogs for clues about what her behavior should be. For example, when our hearing BC is tracking a squirrel through the tree tops, the deaf BC is carefully watching the hearing BC to dsicover what is going to happen next.
Only our deaf BC has been observed repeatedly as a juvenile doing self-initiated experiments apparently exploring her three-dimensional (3-D) vision capabilities. To (probably) explore her 3-D vision she repeatedly stood where one eye or the other was covered by an object such as the edge of a door, when engaged in ball-throwing activities with me. When she covered an eye, she had very poor success in catching a ball tossed in her general direction. Later she began to adopt a posture when I was about to toss a ball, so that her own muzzle blocked vision by her off-side eye, which of course would prevent 3-D vision of the early trajectory of the ball and my hand motions. She alternately blocked an eye with an object or muzzle-blocked with one eye or the other, thus indicating that she was exploring a ‘one-eye’ aspect of her vision feature-capability. (An eye examination showed that she had normal vision.)
Our deaf BC was an early “experimenter” on other activities interesting to her. For example, she discovered that humans can kick the ball with their foot, for her to chase and retrieve. She initially explored the issue of how far away; perhaps as far as 10 meters outdoors, she could place a retrieved ball for the human to kick it again. She apparently preferred to force the human to go to the ball, probably so that she could run to a distance before the ball was kicked, i.e. delaying the kick for her convenience. She also probably by observation learned that she could place a retrieved ball near a human on an angle-azimuth to control the direction to where she desired the ball to be kicked. Indoors she often placed a ball near a person’s foot for it to be kicked, in preference to placing the ball in a human’s hand. She personally only throws a ball with her mouth, or pushes it abruptly with her muzzle, and almost never pushes a ball with her paws to make it move to a human.
Our deaf BC later acquired other vision techniques such as the usual “head-tilting” when looking at nearby humans [taking advantage of the dog-linear high resolution eye-streak; see A. Miklosi]. She also later used rapid eye “flicking” back and forth between two dynamic objects that interest her, to keep close track of both objects at the same time. I have never seen her using the eye-flicker to closely observe more than two objects but suppose that she could do it. Further, on several occasions while she was “staring” at a herding candidate, as BCs normally do to control sheep, she suddenly dashed away in fast pursuit of a squirrel that she had seen at the extreme outward angle of her peripheral vision, and which I had not at first seen. Such extreme sensitivity of the outermost portion of the linear eye-streak was first called to my attention by the dog-vision remarks provided in A. Miklosi’s book. The hearing BC had acquired head-tilting and other vision techniques previous to their rediscovery or mimicking by the deaf BC. [Both BCs use the classic “eye-stare” for herding other dogs.]
Unusual and “classical” vocalizing by deaf dogs: Perhaps it is well known that many deaf humans may encounter difficulty in learning to speak clearly, because they are unable to perceive the sound of their own voices. In addition, research of bird songs reported that apparently birds are hatched with a “template” of the natural songs of their species. Further research demonstrated that juvenile birds refine their songs by modifying or embroidering their templates on the basis of species songs that they hear as they mature, with the result that each flock may have a unique song-dialect.
Digital recordings of the vocalizing of four (4) litters of puppies [totaling 22], by two mothers and three different fathers indicated that at birth, within seconds, puppies vocalized human-recognizable proto-barks, whines, and “lost-puppy” chirps, plus miscellaneous trills, humming, et al. Each litter at birth possessed a collection of vocalizations that was readily distinguishably and unique compared to the other litters. Such birth-vocalizations within seconds of entering the world were based on instinctive breed and species “templates.” Internet reports suggested that some dogs can learn to imitate vocalizing of other dog breeds, such as reported of a BC raised with raccoon-hunting hounds. Our hearing dog was able to imitate and exchange special non-bark/growl vocalizations with other local dogs of other breeds when she was adopted by us, but gave up that activity when nothing of interest to her was obtained by her from the activity.
Our deaf dog when she is apparently calmly and deliberately barking vocalized much like the barking of her hearing mother. However, when the deaf dog became very excited, she used high pitched “yodeling-screams.” As a juvenile she “yodeled” when very excited during play, as for example running through a water sprinkler. She didn’t observably elevate her head or take a specific posture when yodeling.
When waking up she usually makes a single “mooing” sound of about a second duration, quite like the “lowing” sounds made by dairy cattle. That kind of vocalizing has been stable for at least three years. Our hearing dog never vocalizes when waking up from sleep.
Our hearing dog occasionally vocalized while asleep, and almost always used sounds that fit her recent activities such as chasing squirrels, or playing soccer. The combination of her leg motions and vocalizations permitted human observers to clearly distinguishable between soccer and squirrel chasing. In contrast, our deaf dog when asleep occasionally made unique “soft” sounds somewhat like her moo sounds.
I discovered by observing our deaf dog and our hearing dog, that BCs probably are born with breed and species specific templates at least for proto-barking, whines, and “lost-puppy” chirps but can as an adult also learn to vocalize other sound patterns, even imitating human words and phrases.
Other deaf-dog activities
General social behavior of the deaf dog was similar to that of our hearing dog, and closely agreed with the discussion in the research paper “The Social Organization of the Domestic Dogs” by Alexandra Semyonova, available at Nonlineardogs.com.
No unusual activities of the deaf dog obviously involved smell-olfactory actions. The basis, if any, of a deaf dog’s possibly being more or less interested in smells than a hearing dog couldn’t be evaluated.
Deaf dog ear ‘motions and postures’ signifying their direct of interest, intensity of attention, etc were indistinguishable from the comparable actions of hearing BCs.
Our deaf dog and our hearing dog quickly learned to remain within their unfenced yard, which is bordered on two sides by heavily traveled sidewalks and suburban streets. Both dogs routinely attempted to persuade passing adults and children to participate in a game of soccer.
Although Internet reported anecdotes plausibly suggested that deaf dogs can be trained more easily than hearing dogs of the same breed, I didn’t observe a significant difference in ease of training between the deaf and the hearing dog; both learned quickly. Our deaf dog received her basic sign language training from human females and at age three+ years she continued to learn more quickly from women.
Deaf dogs in Australia were not discriminated against as done by the US AKC. In Australia deaf dogs competed at all levels in all dogs sports, e.g. obedience, rally, agility, herding, tracking, Frisbee, pointing/ gun dog, lure coursing, etc. and also as therapy dogs. It showed the AKC and its people how backward that organization can appear to be for deaf dogs and their humans. Also a deaf border collie competed at CRUFTS in the United Kingdom in agility in 2010. Those events encourage people to ‘THINK’ and that is needed to permit deaf dogs to live and perform with their humans as thoroughly and happily as hearing dogs with humans.
Deaf Dog Border Collie Observations & Comments
These ‘Observations and Comments’ were partly illustrative personal observations of a deaf Border Collie (BC) dog and her hearing mother in our home and vicinity, with a few paraphrased anecdotes from a Yahoo group. Our deaf BC is a spayed female four years old. She was born on a sofa in our home, raised under our kitchen table and in the immediate surrounding areas. Her deafness was amply confirmed by simple tests, such as her failure to react promptly to loud noises near her, by age eight (8) weeks. A BAER test was unneeded. Both her mother and father possessed a ‘white-merle (risk) factor’ such that one or more of their pups possibly would be one-ear deaf or totally deaf (both ears). Possible deafness was preliminarily indicated if a puppy was born colored almost totally white and later as they grew up sported a black-spotted light color coat (Dalmatian style “freckles” or a “merle” coat.).
Although until recently mislabeled “a deaf-white gene,” white coat color was not always the case. What was the case was that for deaf puppies, including BC’s it was that areas around the head and ears are white but they can have a lot of black on their backs. With Australian Cattle dogs, the coat was very light colored, blue or red, not dark, and deaf cattle dogs had virtually no
spots or patches despite the presence of the high probability of deafness Dalmatian gene that brought in deafness when the Australian Cattle dogs breed was being made. For Koolies it was the merle gene.
The dog’s deafness or blindness might be a result of causes such as a genetic birth defect, old-age, disease or an accident. Membership was world-wide: Australia, US, Canada, Europe, etc. Because many members had hearing dogs, deaf dogs, blind dogs and some blind-deaf dogs, the total of dogs represented were probably over 8,000. It was likely that all of the major dog breeds were represented. Their views about deaf dogs or blind dogs or blind-deaf were well summarized in a member's mantra.
Many unpleasant misleading or false vicious stories exist about deaf dogs. According to various Internet reports, the US AKC (in 2010) allegedly discriminated against participation of deaf dogs (dogs lacking useful hearing) in their activities such as agility and obedience competitions. Our experience indicated that, among the general public, the negative emotional reaction against deaf dogs ranged from expectations of severe mental incapacity to expecting irrational viciousness. The most common reaction was to treat a deaf dog or a blind as a “Throw-away” toy to be used up and discarded, or discarded immediately. The so-called myths were vicious stories- misleading with at most a tiny kernel of fact or entirely false. Except for using conventional ear-hearing, deaf dogs are capable of the activities of hearing dogs. Furthermore, some deaf dogs engage in activities that are unusual among hearing dogs. Living with a deaf dog often enhanced our lives and the lives of our friends benefited who adopted deaf dogs or blind dogs.
Ear-Hearing is apparently important to early socializing of puppies: As described by Scott and Fuller, 1965, puppies learn from each other about the age of three to eight weeks that they must use a soft-mouth [gentle-inhibited bite]. K Lorenz, “King Solomon’s Ring”1952 and “Man Meets Dog” 1953 mistakenly believed that an inhibited bite was exclusively an evolution-fixed action pattern (FAP) genetic instinct like imprinting among certain birds. He was wrong, as documented in 1965 by Scott and Fuller.
If a puppy is unable to hear the screams of its play-victims, and its own screams when play-bitten with needle sharp puppy teeth, it may less quickly learn to use an inhibited bite. The othe puppies will usually refuse to play with any puppy who fails to quickly learn to use a "soft-bite." Further, if refusing to play-share doesn't deter excessive roughness, the siblings may "storm" the delinquent en-mass to make very clear that too much rougness will get its fair "reward" in-kind. Thus a deaf puppy is at risk of being less well socialized, abused by sibling puppies as a rough social deviant, and either timid and passive or oppositely chasing and rough to other puppies. A knowledgable dog-mother with her third litter of puppies used parenting to instill proper social behavior in her hearing or deaf delinquent puppies, or a knowledgeable human can participate in the parenting to ensure all of the puppies learn to use an inhibited bite and treat each other kindly.
Unfortunately neither puppies nor human babies arrive with an owner’s manual, so occasional first time mothers are less effective in educating their offspring to use an inhibited bite and play nicely together without bullying. Our experience with Border Collies suggested that at any age dogs are able to learn an inhibited bite and appropriate dog-dog behavior. However, a 100 pound human trying to teach a 90 pound juvenile dog to stop doing excessively fierce nipping and biting may perhaps find herself engaged in a difficult process if the dog has already learned to enjoy controlling the actions of other dogs and humans. In such instances, regardless of whether the dog can hear or is deaf, the aid of a professional trainer accustomed to educating poorly socialized large dogs should be sought.
Startle Reflex Education: Dogs and humans who are unexpectedly touched, or even worse – kicked - might understandably react with their ‘startle reflex’ by looking around and possibly instinctively defending itself against an apparent ‘attacker.’ Puppies can quickly learn that sudden noises and touches typically are a sign that something good is about to happen, such as breakfast with mother - that being startled is good.
Properly raised puppies teach each other to react with inhibited bites to sudden touches, and that even being "knocked over" isn’t a satisfactory excuse to severely bite somebody. Puppies we observed began about an age of four weeks playing learning-games that we called “puppy bumping.” Ocassionally for play, a puppy ran across the floor to collide with and knock an unsteady sibling off its feet. Sometimes a ‘tussle’ ensued with the puppy play-attacker and the play-victim engaging in much mutual vocalizing, nips and exchanges of ear, fur and tail pulling.
Thus a deaf puppy can be educated by its siblings to react enthusiastically and happily by nipping at a presumed play-attacker when as a “play-victim” the deaf puppy is startled from a sound sleep, or caught in a position where it didn’t see the "attacker" arriving. A deaf puppy socialized to manage its startle reflex, won't have a tendency to embarrass itself by nipping at a friendly human who touches it to wake it up for the pup's dinner. Deaf dogs as reported on the Internet were easily educated that any sudden disturbance was probably a clue that something nice was about to happen.
An exception was of course the reports of deaf puppies and juveniles who were taught by a human that a startle-sudden disturbance means they were being kicked or injured. Eventually perhaps mistreated puppies might be instinctively driven to defend themselves, run away, or die. People with deaf dogs DELIBERATELY touch to wake and train their dogs to wake up happy and to never wake up and nip anyone.
‘Velcroing’ by deaf dogs and seeking to calm their startle reflex: Our deaf dog, and according to reports on the Internet most other deaf dogs, discovered a technique that humans call ‘velcroing.” Typically a deaf dog as a juvenile, and some as adults, choose when sleepy or asleep to keep direct physical contact with their favorite human or a chair the person might be sitting on. The deaf dog has learned that the slightest movement of the person or the chair signals that something interesting is about to happen, so the dog should wake up and become alert [The world needs more ‘lerts.] Many dogs later learn that lying across a door, if that is the main exit and entrance will ensure that the dog knows when its human goes past. Some humans and other dogs will learn to play ‘games’ on the deaf dog by sneaking stealthily past the sleeping dog, leaving the deaf dog to awake later and wonder where the others went. In addition to great awareness of mechancial vibrtions in the floors, walls and the air, deaf dogs are typically much attuned with 'air movements'. For example, if the dog is in a crate and an outside door is opened, the dog will likely wake up because it senses the changed air movement and fresh smells. [See "Adapting to Deafness" of this Web site.]
Non-ear hearing by deaf dogs: Our deaf dog at about eight months age was observed in the presence of talking humans to stand on a sofa with her forehead lowered to press against the cushion she was standing on. She had discovered that she could detect and ‘understand’ vibrations (sounds) by touching with whiskers or a paw or standing on vibrating surfaces. Later she discovered that she could ‘listen’ to the sound - vibrations of a telephone-voice-recorder when she played back the recorded messages, with her chin touching the top of the machine. Similarly she ‘listened’ to a small radio by placing her chin on top of its case. She never placed her chin on those objects unless they were playing voices or radio at a significant loudness. As anyone might know who observed ripples on the surface of a beverage in a flimsy paper cup, or felt with their finger tips the vibrations of a small radio’s case, etc. - vibrations of sounds can cause touch and air-movement pressure - touch sensations by moving their skin, fur/hair/clothing, external portions of ears, and of course dog-whiskers.
Thus owners sometimes hope that their deaf-dog has recovered some human-like inner-ear cochlea-cilia hearing, when actually their dog has cleverly discovered that various mechnaical vibration and pressure -touch sensations of their body parts have "sounds" of their environment.
Similarly, some scientists reported that many blind humans routinely extract information about their surroundings from the modulation and arrival times of mechanical vibrations (sounds) received directly from a source versus those vibrations-sounds echoed (reflected) from the surroundings. Convincing reports of hound dogs using radar-like location- "bark-echo" hearing at night were posted on the Internet in 2010.
Such auxuliary (not by their inner-ear) detection of mechanical vibrations (sounds) by a deaf dog can be like inner-ear-hearing if the source of the sounds is a human or another dog at close range- perhaps several feet away. For example, I also observed our deaf dog being summoned by her mother who stood behind the deaf dog at a distance of about several feet and barked several times with increasing loudness until her daughter looked over her own shoulder to see her mother, and hopped up to follow her away. Combined touch-skin detection of the vibration (sounds) and olfactory-smell detection of her mother’s dog-breath might have alerted the deaf lass that it was time to move on.
Dog-Human Sign Languages: Puppies learn to understand the body-language, vocalizing and odors of other dogs, and their humans, much as human babies learn to understand adult humans and other children. A deaf puppy necessarily omits learning the meaning of inner-ear sounds, and thus tends to focus on understanding body language, including hand gestures of humans, and olfaction-smelling. Thus deaf puppies are predisposed to learn from humans a “gesture language” such as American Sign Language (ASL) or one of ASL’s international variants. A fine trainer, Virginia Broitman, taught our deaf dog all the basic signs.
Routinely deaf dogs acquire at least an elementary language capability consisting of verbs [get, come, lie-down, etc], nouns such as ball, Frisbee, rope, names and so forth; and adjectives that describe a specific noun-object such as for example “short” rope, and “long” rope. Complex gestures such as those describing a path to be run to get a specific object are routine. Thus human communication to deaf dogs with a version of sign language is common. ASL is not international, as it is mainly used in America and Canada. Australia and Britain have a different style of hand-sign language. In Australia it is called AUSLAN and the hand-signals are different than ASL.
Humans also use their own obedience hand signals, and invent ‘made up’ hand signals. ONE HANDED signals are best, to always keep one hand free for holding a leash, groceries, etc.
In addition to the ‘classic’ hand sign languages, deaf dogs expect from their humans the important face and body language, e.g. HAPPY, relaxed, smiling face and a very loose fluid body. Conversely ‘scolding’ is usually done by just using ANGRY, pinched face, glaring eyes and a very ‘stiff’ body posture. Deaf dogs, like hearing dogs, carefully watch and respond to face and body language, before we usually even realize.
Reciprocal communication to humans by gesture signing of dogs is feasible and can be routine although such training of dogs is sparsely documented. The work and publications by Sean Senechal should be consulted for the best of such research currently known to me. Owners of deaf dogs reported many casual anecdotes of their customary reliance on ad hoc informal dog-“sign-gesture”/“body-language”-language dialects mutually developed among the associated humans and dogs.
Dog-dog reciprocal communication using body-language is routine, although some hearing dogs are said to momentarily experience a little apparent confusion about unusual or unorthodox verbalizing by deaf dogs when initially encountering a deaf dog. Our hearing BC and her deaf daughter BC illustrated that.
When my deaf BC used inappropriate ‘fierce’ vocalizing at first when engaging in rough rope-tug play with me, its hearing mother BC scolded the deaf dog, until after several events the deaf dog softened its vocalizing.
Self-Awareness that a deaf dog is ‘different’: Our daughter, who is deaf in one ear, self-diagnosed her uni-deaf (monaural) capability at age six years. Our deaf BC as a juvenile between the ages of two months and 18 months occasionally exhibited behavior that implied that she was aware that she had different sensory and perhaps physical features. She also exhibited one of the occasional anecdotes reported of deaf dogs’ behaviors: a fascination with the ears of humans. Usually the subject human reported sitting or reclining when the deaf dog gently investigated in detail the ears of its human. Later at random intervals the action was repeated in a way indicating that the deaf dog was deliberately repeating the actions as ‘play.’
Our deaf juvenile BC routinely accepted that other dogs have an “extrasensory perception” that permits other dogs to understand what humans want done - commands and events - without looking at the humans although the deaf dog is apparently unaware of how that is communicated from the human to the other dog(s). Our deaf BC frequently looks briefly at her humans and the other dogs for clues about what her behavior should be. For example, when our hearing BC is tracking a squirrel through the tree tops, the deaf BC is carefully watching the hearing BC to dsicover what is going to happen next.
Only our deaf BC has been observed repeatedly as a juvenile doing self-initiated experiments apparently exploring her three-dimensional (3-D) vision capabilities. To (probably) explore her 3-D vision she repeatedly stood where one eye or the other was covered by an object such as the edge of a door, when engaged in ball-throwing activities with me. When she covered an eye, she had very poor success in catching a ball tossed in her general direction. Later she began to adopt a posture when I was about to toss a ball, so that her own muzzle blocked vision by her off-side eye, which of course would prevent 3-D vision of the early trajectory of the ball and my hand motions. She alternately blocked an eye with an object or muzzle-blocked with one eye or the other, thus indicating that she was exploring a ‘one-eye’ aspect of her vision feature-capability. (An eye examination showed that she had normal vision.)
Our deaf BC was an early “experimenter” on other activities interesting to her. For example, she discovered that humans can kick the ball with their foot, for her to chase and retrieve. She initially explored the issue of how far away; perhaps as far as 10 meters outdoors, she could place a retrieved ball for the human to kick it again. She apparently preferred to force the human to go to the ball, probably so that she could run to a distance before the ball was kicked, i.e. delaying the kick for her convenience. She also probably by observation learned that she could place a retrieved ball near a human on an angle-azimuth to control the direction to where she desired the ball to be kicked. Indoors she often placed a ball near a person’s foot for it to be kicked, in preference to placing the ball in a human’s hand. She personally only throws a ball with her mouth, or pushes it abruptly with her muzzle, and almost never pushes a ball with her paws to make it move to a human.
Our deaf BC later acquired other vision techniques such as the usual “head-tilting” when looking at nearby humans [taking advantage of the dog-linear high resolution eye-streak; see A. Miklosi]. She also later used rapid eye “flicking” back and forth between two dynamic objects that interest her, to keep close track of both objects at the same time. I have never seen her using the eye-flicker to closely observe more than two objects but suppose that she could do it. Further, on several occasions while she was “staring” at a herding candidate, as BCs normally do to control sheep, she suddenly dashed away in fast pursuit of a squirrel that she had seen at the extreme outward angle of her peripheral vision, and which I had not at first seen. Such extreme sensitivity of the outermost portion of the linear eye-streak was first called to my attention by the dog-vision remarks provided in A. Miklosi’s book. The hearing BC had acquired head-tilting and other vision techniques previous to their rediscovery or mimicking by the deaf BC. [Both BCs use the classic “eye-stare” for herding other dogs.]
Unusual and “classical” vocalizing by deaf dogs: Perhaps it is well known that many deaf humans may encounter difficulty in learning to speak clearly, because they are unable to perceive the sound of their own voices. In addition, research of bird songs reported that apparently birds are hatched with a “template” of the natural songs of their species. Further research demonstrated that juvenile birds refine their songs by modifying or embroidering their templates on the basis of species songs that they hear as they mature, with the result that each flock may have a unique song-dialect.
Digital recordings of the vocalizing of four (4) litters of puppies [totaling 22], by two mothers and three different fathers indicated that at birth, within seconds, puppies vocalized human-recognizable proto-barks, whines, and “lost-puppy” chirps, plus miscellaneous trills, humming, et al. Each litter at birth possessed a collection of vocalizations that was readily distinguishably and unique compared to the other litters. Such birth-vocalizations within seconds of entering the world were based on instinctive breed and species “templates.” Internet reports suggested that some dogs can learn to imitate vocalizing of other dog breeds, such as reported of a BC raised with raccoon-hunting hounds. Our hearing dog was able to imitate and exchange special non-bark/growl vocalizations with other local dogs of other breeds when she was adopted by us, but gave up that activity when nothing of interest to her was obtained by her from the activity.
Our deaf dog when she is apparently calmly and deliberately barking vocalized much like the barking of her hearing mother. However, when the deaf dog became very excited, she used high pitched “yodeling-screams.” As a juvenile she “yodeled” when very excited during play, as for example running through a water sprinkler. She didn’t observably elevate her head or take a specific posture when yodeling.
When waking up she usually makes a single “mooing” sound of about a second duration, quite like the “lowing” sounds made by dairy cattle. That kind of vocalizing has been stable for at least three years. Our hearing dog never vocalizes when waking up from sleep.
Our hearing dog occasionally vocalized while asleep, and almost always used sounds that fit her recent activities such as chasing squirrels, or playing soccer. The combination of her leg motions and vocalizations permitted human observers to clearly distinguishable between soccer and squirrel chasing. In contrast, our deaf dog when asleep occasionally made unique “soft” sounds somewhat like her moo sounds.
I discovered by observing our deaf dog and our hearing dog, that BCs probably are born with breed and species specific templates at least for proto-barking, whines, and “lost-puppy” chirps but can as an adult also learn to vocalize other sound patterns, even imitating human words and phrases.
Other deaf-dog activities
General social behavior of the deaf dog was similar to that of our hearing dog, and closely agreed with the discussion in the research paper “The Social Organization of the Domestic Dogs” by Alexandra Semyonova, available at Nonlineardogs.com.
No unusual activities of the deaf dog obviously involved smell-olfactory actions. The basis, if any, of a deaf dog’s possibly being more or less interested in smells than a hearing dog couldn’t be evaluated.
Deaf dog ear ‘motions and postures’ signifying their direct of interest, intensity of attention, etc were indistinguishable from the comparable actions of hearing BCs.
Our deaf dog and our hearing dog quickly learned to remain within their unfenced yard, which is bordered on two sides by heavily traveled sidewalks and suburban streets. Both dogs routinely attempted to persuade passing adults and children to participate in a game of soccer.
Although Internet reported anecdotes plausibly suggested that deaf dogs can be trained more easily than hearing dogs of the same breed, I didn’t observe a significant difference in ease of training between the deaf and the hearing dog; both learned quickly. Our deaf dog received her basic sign language training from human females and at age three+ years she continued to learn more quickly from women.
Deaf dogs in Australia were not discriminated against as done by the US AKC. In Australia deaf dogs competed at all levels in all dogs sports, e.g. obedience, rally, agility, herding, tracking, Frisbee, pointing/ gun dog, lure coursing, etc. and also as therapy dogs. It showed the AKC and its people how backward that organization can appear to be for deaf dogs and their humans. Also a deaf border collie competed at CRUFTS in the United Kingdom in agility in 2010. Those events encourage people to ‘THINK’ and that is needed to permit deaf dogs to live and perform with their humans as thoroughly and happily as hearing dogs with humans.
Deaf Dog Border Collie Observations & Comments
These ‘Observations and Comments’ were partly illustrative personal observations of a deaf Border Collie (BC) dog and her hearing mother in our home and vicinity, with a few paraphrased anecdotes from a Yahoo group. Our deaf BC is a spayed female four years old. She was born on a sofa in our home, raised under our kitchen table and in the immediate surrounding areas. Her deafness was amply confirmed by simple tests, such as her failure to react promptly to loud noises near her, by age eight (8) weeks. A BAER test was unneeded. Both her mother and father possessed a ‘white-merle (risk) factor’ such that one or more of their pups possibly would be one-ear deaf or totally deaf (both ears). Possible deafness was preliminarily indicated if a puppy was born colored almost totally white and later as they grew up sported a black-spotted light color coat (Dalmatian style “freckles” or a “merle” coat.).
Although until recently mislabeled “a deaf-white gene,” white coat color was not always the case. What was the case was that for deaf puppies, including BC’s it was that areas around the head and ears are white but they can have a lot of black on their backs. With Australian Cattle dogs, the coat was very light colored, blue or red, not dark, and deaf cattle dogs had virtually no
spots or patches despite the presence of the high probability of deafness Dalmatian gene that brought in deafness when the Australian Cattle dogs breed was being made. For Koolies it was the merle gene.
The dog’s deafness or blindness might be a result of causes such as a genetic birth defect, old-age, disease or an accident. Membership was world-wide: Australia, US, Canada, Europe, etc. Because many members had hearing dogs, deaf dogs, blind dogs and some blind-deaf dogs, the total of dogs represented were probably over 8,000. It was likely that all of the major dog breeds were represented. Their views about deaf dogs or blind dogs or blind-deaf were well summarized in a member's mantra.
Many unpleasant misleading or false vicious stories exist about deaf dogs. According to various Internet reports, the US AKC (in 2010) allegedly discriminated against participation of deaf dogs (dogs lacking useful hearing) in their activities such as agility and obedience competitions. Our experience indicated that, among the general public, the negative emotional reaction against deaf dogs ranged from expectations of severe mental incapacity to expecting irrational viciousness. The most common reaction was to treat a deaf dog or a blind as a “Throw-away” toy to be used up and discarded, or discarded immediately. The so-called myths were vicious stories- misleading with at most a tiny kernel of fact or entirely false. Except for using conventional ear-hearing, deaf dogs are capable of the activities of hearing dogs. Furthermore, some deaf dogs engage in activities that are unusual among hearing dogs. Living with a deaf dog often enhanced our lives and the lives of our friends benefited who adopted deaf dogs or blind dogs.