When we first got Lola, she quickly developed a habit of scratching on the screen door when she wanted someone to let her in — which was frequently. It’s been warm enough lately that we mostly just use the screen door.

I’ll spare you the image of what those scratches did to the soft wood of the door.

So one day recently, my husband Kelly took a rope toy we had lying around, and turned it into Lola’s own doorpull!

She had already learned from scratching that if she hit the door hard enough, it might bounce open far enough that she could stick her paw in and flip the door open, but it didn’t work all that well.

When I saw Kelly’s handiwork, I grabbed some tiny pieces of cheese that I had, plus my clicker, and joined Lola outside the door. I used the cheese as a lure to get her to put her nose on or at least near the knot in the rope — the knot that sticks out, not the one right by the door.

We did this maybe 15 or 20 times, and twice she pulled a little on the rope but she didn’t seem to see what this could do for her.

The next day was hectic and we didn’t do any more training. I was going to… but Lola figured it out!

Recently (on August 30) I blogged about Otis, a deaf dog being trained by his owner, to very good effect. Becky (from Ohio) and I have exchanged further emails and here is her latest update. There’s a picture of Otis and Buster at the bottom of this writing.

This is our 1st deaf dog but he is a lot of fun. I will say to anyone do not be afraid at all to adopt a deaf dog. They are really just like a hearing dog but it may take more time to teach them, specially if you do not have a hearing dog already in the house.

The other dog is our 3 year old named Buster. He’s a rescue who has helped a lot with training Otis. It is really funny — it is a “monkey see monkey do” thing with these 2 dogs.

When Otis was just 5 months old he won a blue ribbon at the animal charity dogs show of Youngstown, Ohio for best tricks. He is very good mannered when out around people. In my experience with this deaf dog it really takes a lot of treats to teach him, but he learns fast. We use pieces of his food rather than treats.

He now knows how to stay with pushing our hand towards him.

After we fill his dish he knows where he eats at and just sits down in his spot before we give him his food. He also has learned when we put a hand up going back and forth waving at him that it means NO!

When we get ice out of the freezer for our drinks he sits and waits for his ice cube too. He loves them and thinks one is a real treat!

Also we had to take the 40-lb plastic containers of dog food downstairs as Otis had watched us open them to feed him and he was opening them to get his own food. One day we came home and the container of food was on the other side of the room dumped out on the dog bed. This container had at least 30 lbs of food in it.

We had a plastic kids’ gate between our kitchen and living room.Otis had watched us open it to get through and finally he had that down also and was opening the gate himself.

This deaf dog is really smart, more so than many hearing dogs!

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

Here are some tips on getting your existing dogs to accept a new one, woven into the story of our household:

We’ve had our new dog over a month now. An 8 month old Rottweiler rescue, she’s fitting into our lives very nicely. At first LarryDog, who’s ten and somewhat set in his ways, wasn’t pleased. He was jealous of any attention she got. He would growl and grumble.

We mostly ignored his growls, once we remembered that he also growled a lot when he lived with our Basenji, Sunbeam, who died over two years ago. He’s just a very talkative guy, but we monitored things closely at first.

We don’t much like listening to Larry’s fussing and I worked on one aspect of it. Whenever we would let Lola into the house, if he was inside he would come charging into the kitchen (where the door is) and growl. I took to calling both dogs: “Doggies, sit!” just as I’d let Lola in. Then while they were on the sit-stay, I’d open the fridge and take out tiny pieces of cheese or carrot that I had prepared beforehand. They each got a treat, and Larry’s growls have diminished generally. This also helped teach Lola the sit-stay.
Larry is most crochety in the evenings, and a few times we simply put his leash around the sofa leg, told him to go to his bed next to the sofa, and put the leash on him so his territory was limited for an hour or more. Once or twice in the beginning, we had to do the same thing with Lola at the same time, so she wouldn’t wander over to be near him when he didn’t want it.

We’ve also used body blocking to good effect, just getting in the way of the dogs if Larry was upset.

But already things are changing, a lot. The two dogs have become buddies, and both of them generally prefer to be together. If one goes outside, pretty soon the other one may. There was even one glorious evening when Lola was in wild-romping-puppy mode and Larry ran back and forth with her for a bit, growling all the time!

Yes, it’s quite clear that Larry is happier now that Lola is here.

The cats? That’s another story. They both think Lola is a nuisance and a danger. Is she really? I rather doubt it, but since the cats think so, they do take good precautions around her, and I’m glad.

The Tellington Touch, or TTouch, is a wonderful method of working with your dog to ease physical pain or emotional problems. My husband Kelly and I learned about it when we produced a video (now DVD) called The Tellington TTouch for Happier, Healthier Dogs, featuring Linda Tellington-Jones, who created this group of techniques. (The link takes you to my page about the method and the DVD.)

Anyway, I am always telling people about the TTouch and showing them how to do a basic bit of it. Recently I ran into a man I know who usually has his elderly collie with him. But the dog wasn’t there. When I asked, the guy said that the dog was at home, as it had been feeling a little off lately.

Well, that was my cue! “Have you heard about the Tellington TTouch?” I asked.

To my surprise, he said, “Oh yes! I met Linda over ten years ago and I’ve been using it ever since!” They had met at a horse event and he’d used it with horses and dogs ever since. He proceeded to describe the various touches he uses, with lots of detail which I might have been hard pressed to come up with myself. But I recognized its accuracy. He had stayed home from a party the other night because he and the dog had gotten into such a peaceful space together as he did the ttouches that time had passed without his being aware of it.

Besides admiring his memory, I was happy to hear his ttouch story!