greg l

My apologies...I misread the intent of your post and kinda took offense...No harm done...I have only been a border collie owner 2 years..and we don't work sheep, so I'm kinda trying to find my way and place here...the border collie is a wonderful breed and having both a rescue and a deaf dog they are real challenges...I won't be so quick to judge next time...Greg

I'm going to try to proceed to train him on sheep and agility using sign language, but Im going to need all the help I can get or garner. Thanks, Nancy & Gus I'm not very computer literate and don't know how to do the box thing....YES I understand the OP was about dogs going deaf after hearing....... .....This thread is about dogs born hearing that go deaf before they get old, <8 years old. Congenital deafness (born deaf) is a different genetic defect that has some correlation to excessive white on the head.......Mark Billadeau BUT I thought the OP was also looking for help/encouragement from people with deaf dogs....and I have a great 2 year old that has always been deaf....and has no white on his ears and is mostly 90% red on his head....I only thought to offer encouragement....excuse me for replying....now I am beginning to see why other posters think this board is mean or hard to get along with...Nancy good luck....bye for a while...Greg

Greetings Nancy, I can't help you with the early deafness problem because our boy was deaf from birth. I do know for a fact you can train your dog to hand signs. We went to a trainer for some and also made up our own...we also {gasp} use an electronic collar with a vibrate feature. Our dog is off lead 99% of the time..if he is in the hayifeld or in the gully or creek we will vibrate him....he immediately knows to look for us...he also will check up on us every couple of minutes...we rarely use any stimulation other than vibrate...keeping him from the road was one use...My advice would be to start now while your dog can still hear with both voice and hand signals..and consider a vibrate collar....not to shock only to call...and good luck...Greg

My 2 aren't happy if they don't get outside for at least 2 hours every day...If I'm at the fire department my lovely spouse takes them out when she's working with/feeding the horse and I take them out the other 2 days for their daily romp....a couple of times they didn't get to go out....-2 temps and we had to do inside hide and find...course we still had horse to tend to but she stayed in the barn...and also used this time to reinforce our basic commands...stay sit etc...but most days we dress in layers and go out...we let the dogs tell us when they are cold and need to come in...they love the snow...Greg