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I once trained a totally deaf dog we were fostering. I taught him thumbs-up as "good dog", and everything just rolled from there. Years later, I still do thumbs
by beat 10y ago
I once trained a totally deaf dog we were fostering. I taught him thumbs-up as "good dog", and everything just rolled from there. Years later, I still do thumbs-up gestures all the time. That dog trained me!
(I'm glad we only had him for a week. Another week, and I don't think I would have been able to let him go! But we really couldn't have three full-time dogs then.)
- rl3 10y agoHah. Come to think of it, I usually give a thumbs up in conjunction with the aforementioned "dog smile". Turns out the two gestures go really well together, or at least I think they do. Dogs probably think I'm an idiot. :)
- beat 10y agoWe've always trained our dogs with hand gestures rather than words anyway, so it made sense. I was really glad to help out Dusty! He was about a year old, a kind of misbred Australian shepherd that Aussie folks call a "lethal white". Lethal whites (a product of breeding two merle-colored Aussies together, 1/4 of which are like this) are often blind, deaf, or both. Dusty could see okay, but he was totally deaf. And being a herding dog, he needed a job. He wanted so hard to be a good boy, to contribute some how, but had no idea what to do. (He had been rescued from a dangerous domestic violence situation, where the owner's boyfriend hated that stupid destructive dog of hers.) He was able to move on to his next fostering knowing how to sit, lay down, and stay, and how to be taught more. It was amazing to teach him! It was like Helen Keller come to life in my house.
- beat 10y agoOh, and your dogs probably think you're a genius!
- jotux 10y agoMy wife and I joke that our two dogs taught us to howl when firetrucks go by with their sirens blaring. We catch ourselves howling in the car, by ourselves, when a firetruck passes.