Candie Posted July 21, 2014 Report Share Posted July 21, 2014 I recently rescued a 1 year old deaf husky. His previous owner never taught him how to walk on a leash. Over the past 3 weeks we have been working on loose leash training and he is doing great but he is still very vocal. He starts screaming from the time he spots the leash until we get home. Anyone ever have a deaf husky? If so how did you get him/her to be less vocal while out and about. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Removed #5 Posted July 21, 2014 Report Share Posted July 21, 2014 I'm honestly thinking that if he's vocalizing then he's not entirely deaf, just an observation. Have you tried different sounds / noises to see if he reacts to anything? Does he respond to a car horn, for example? The last resort might be a firecracker from a distance to see if he reacts to it - but only after all else fails. Now on to my answer ... and questions; when you get the leash, what are the vocalizations like, are they excited "Oh, hurry up, I *so* want to go out!" or fearful? If it's just excitement, I think I'd use NILIF technique. Get the leash, he gets excited, so you put the leash up. Keep it up until you can get the leash without him going berserk. If it looks like fear, I'd do pretty much the same thing but more slowly and carefully, (it's called desensitization, in either case). On a walk, I think I'd be inclined to see if I can get him to calm, just stop someplace where there's not a lot going on and pet (and talk to) him until he's calm enough to walk on. And, no, I don't have a deaf dog, but from experience, training a deaf or blind dog is really little different than training a "normal dog". For example, where with a hearing dog you'd say "No!" for bad behaviour, you'd tap (I started to say stomp, but we don't really want to surprise the dog too badly) your foot on the floor ... in either case it's distraction from an undesired action. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Candie Posted July 21, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2014 He is totally deaf. I tested him with an air horn at several different distances. He didn't even twitch an ear. I believe he is excited when he sees the leash. He doesn't seem fearful at all. We do the NILF with all of our dogs and it is working well with Ares except for the vocalization. I will put a link to a video that I made after I first adopted him. In the video he is pulling the leash and screaming. He has since stopped pulling on the leash and will walk with a loose leash but he still screams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BingBlaze n Skyla Posted July 21, 2014 Report Share Posted July 21, 2014 I would try putting the leash away when he gets excited and only put it on when he's calm , also try picking it up at random times of the day carry it around and put it down again so he learns picking up the lead doesn't mean he's going out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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