May 11, 2011

Do you have any suggestions for training a deaf dog? Would Michael Ellis’s methods work?

Full Question:
Cindy,

One of my friends just adopted a 1.5 year old deaf female doberman. He is interested in finding a trainer or training materials so he can learn how to best handle the disability. He says that she is easily startled and is very hesitant with too much attention. He has 3 other dogs and 2 young children. Of course I love and would recommend all the Leerburg/Michael Ellis training materials. I'm not sure if the dog is 100% deaf or not, but if it is, do you have any suggestions? Any alternative markers that would work visually?

Thanks in advance,
James
Cindy
Cindy Cindy's Answer:
I don’t see why the Ellis methods couldn’t be used with a deaf dog, you would just have to use a gesture for your marker as opposed to a word.

I’d recommend The Power of Training Dogs with Markers and The Power of Training Dogs with Food to start.

I’ve heard that dogs learn sign language quite easily, so that’s an option.

There is quite a bit of info on our website about training deaf dogs, the forum has some discussions about this and some things that have worked for folks. The search function is located in the top left corner of every page of Leerburg.com. Hopefully you will find some useful information there.

Cindy Rhodes

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Expert Dog Trainer Cindy Rhodes
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