For a very good guide to all sorts of dog training processes and dog behavior challenges, I use and recommend Clickertraining ...that link goes to the description of this terrific ebook you download immediately, wherever you are! -- Rosana

This charming pup, Otis, is deaf.

I had some interesting correspondance earlier this year with Becky of Boardman, Ohio, Otis’ human mom. She wrote asking if I knew anything about training deaf dogs. I didn’t but I had noticed that my webpage on books about training deaf dogs does get quite a lot of traffic. I asked her to tell me more, and she said:

Thank you for your e-mail! Our dog is deaf; he was born around Dec.18,2006. So we have to try signs with him. It is very hard to get him to stop biting, as he is cutting teeth. Our one dog has helped me to teach him to sit and give his paw with signs. I’m working on trying to get him to speak when I want but is has been hard.

We have no real idea what to do with this deaf dog but we will keep him forever. I have two rescues here that would not have had any kind of life if they were not with me, I feel.

I wrote her back and asked her permission to put this on the blog, which she agreed to. She added more details and the charming photo above.

My husband can not believe how well I’m teaching him without any knowledge of training deaf dogs.

I think this deaf dog will be the smart one in this house. Already I have taught him to sit using my other dog to help me out. And to give me his paw all with hand signs. I clap when he does something good and right and give him pieces of his food not treats.

Tonight I was able in less than 1/2 hour again teach him to lay down. I put my hand flat on the floor and towards me.

I taught him to speak by putting my finger to my mouth. To do this I had him sit real close to my other dog so that he may feel him speaking. This took the longest to have him learn.

I will work real hard with this pup. We do have to get a vibrating collar not a shock collar, because somehow we have to make him learn to come to us just in case someone would accidentally let him outside. He would never hear us.

I think Otis is one lucky pup!

Want to know more? Dogwise offers books on training deaf dogs.

Dog housetraining comes up regularly as an important dog and puppy training topic… naturally! When I check my statistics each month for which pages of my website are the most popular, almost always #1 is my page titled Potty Training Dogs.

I’ve been pleased lately that people are also finding a relatively new page on the site, my review of a very useful dog potty training ebook called The Ultimate Housetraining Guide. It’s also got a lot of good crate training information, and that’s another popular topic.

If you have any interest in puppy or dog housetraining, take a look!

I came across a blog post where the writer said she had read that the sound of a clicker evidently reached the amygdala, a “primitive’ part of dogs’ brains and ours. She had used clickers in the past but with the rescue dog she was currently training, she had just been using her tongue. When she changed to a clicker, training picked up.

You can read the story here:

http://myrescuedog.turtlegardens.org/?p=21

Our older dog, LarryDog, has been a bit jealous of all the attention that Lola’s been getting. He’s growled at her off and on.

So spontaneously this afternoon, I did some clicker training for both of them together. (“Spontaneously” means that I actually had something else entirely planned for training, but this idea popped up!)

Larry’s known the sit-stay for many years, of course. His favorite behavior when he wants to please me is to sit. I like this so much that I will encourage it in Lola too. She has been getting better at the sit in the several days we’ve had her. In this photo, Lola was getting more and more steady in the “stay” part, picking it up from Larry.

I could practically see the wheels turning in her mind:

“Ah, so this is what we do. We sit till Rosana gets her act together.”

The treats were tiny bits of cut-up cheddar cheese, well worth waiting for! After they had stayed a while, I clicked the clicker, then moved bits of cheese from one hand into both hands and spread them out, palms flat, a good ways away from each other so each dog could tell where to go for the reward.

Here are the two of them together. Such smart and good-looking doggies! That’s my group word, by the way.

When I want both of them, I say “Doggies!”

They’re getting it… fast. Good thing, we’re getting low on cheese!