deaf

The Negatives and Positives

I couldn’t believe some of the negative comments I received about this tiny, harmless 6 week old pup. Things like “That dog is gonna be a killer” and “You have put yourself and your other dogs in danger” My heart was just sinking. I knew nothing about deaf dogs and I knew nothing about English Bull Terriers as a breed. I couldn’t have him pts I just had to try so found some books and bought them and started with training. To my astonishment by 10weeks of age he was housetrained!!! Much quicker than any other dog I’ve owned, he knew “Sit” and a couple weeks later we stared training classes. I read like a demon and asked as many questions as a could and took the most sensible information from all aspects and joined them into one. Any dog can be aggressive and over protective if not socialised properly so Mutton came EVERYWHERE with me. I ignored all the negative stuff and turned it into a positive. Oh believe me its NOT been easy, far from it but I’ve tried to keep it fun and the power of hotdog sausage’s is incredible LOL.

There are many arguments for having a deaf dog pts and here are a few

● The dog may escape and run in the road and be hit by a car as it wouldn’t hear it.

● The dog will become aggressive

● The dog will be untrainable

The more and more I listened to these arguments and reading deaf dog training books things started to make sense. I mean any dog, deaf of not, if given the chance to run or escape the garden would run into the road. How many terrible stories do you hear of where dogs have been hit by a car and how many of them happen to be deaf? Again the argument that the dog would become aggressive. Any dog if not socialised properly could potentially have problems later in life. Of course you shouldn’t wake a deaf dog by startling it as any dog could snap but this could also be the case of a much loved pet that in later life loses its hearing. You wouldn’t dream of having your pet pts you would just make adjustments. Training should be fun for both you and the dog and the one thing I learnt early on is to use 1 hand, its should be the same hand each time and try and keep the instructions and signals simple. Once he picked up the basics we started to make up our own signals that worked for us.

Many breeders, especially of Bull Terriers still pts as soon as they find out the pup is deaf. Most will argue that they are not willing to put potential owners as risk and that they can’t find owners for such dogs. It’s my opinion that these breeders are lazy. They are happy to breed time and time again and take pot luck with ones that don’t come out deaf despite the fact that these dogs can, if bred on further, can throw yet more deaf pups. These dogs don’t ask to be born they just asked to be loved and as breeders it is YOUR responsibility to provide that. The pts argument is nothing now but a mere cop out. Please read more about the facts about deafness and how breeders can help prevent this within the breeds....

Deafness in Bull Terriers

(more deaf dog links on the links page)

Deaf dogs do not know when they are born that they are any different from any of their litter mates. They want to play, they want to learn and they want to be loved and cared for like any other pup and believe me the reward of them showing you their love in return is priceless.

I will update with some of Mutton's antics and training as we go along so look out for updates.

©mutton.2005

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