You don’t want to overfeed your dog.ĭeaf dogs learn just as fast as hearing dogs. However, once your dog has the command down, it’s time to diminish the use of treats so that your dog isn’t expecting them every time.īe sure to consider the treats your dog is consuming when providing food. In the beginning, treats are the easiest thing. Therefore, you need to reinforce the correct action whenever your dog does it. You want to use treats, toys, and praise to make training a positive experience and let your dog know they did the right thing. You can’t exactly tell a deaf dog he is a “good boy.” However, treats and attention still work the same way they do for a hearing dog. Be sure everyone uses the same signals when handling the dog. Just choose some commands and stick with them. Some people use American Sign Language for their dogs. If you hold up a hand with your palm out to mean “stay,” don’t hold the hand in a similar position for any other signal. You want the hand signals to be different enough so that your dog knows what you’re saying and isn’t confused. Some styles of training have certain hand signals, so certain trainers may use one style of hand signals.Įither way, the rules here are the same as choosing vocal commands for your dog. However, there are some that are more common than others. You can technically use whatever hand signals you want to teach your dog. The 7 Vet-Approved Tips & Tricks to Train a Deaf Dog 1. If your dog is deaf, you would only use hand signals. Many trainers teach hand signals along with vocal commands.

It’s no different than using vocal commands and the training process is basically the same. This type of training is actually very common, as many hearing dogs do better with hand signals than vocal commands anyway. Instead of using vocal commands, you’ll train a deaf dog with hand signals. Deaf dogs don’t often need extra training and aren’t any more difficult to train than other dogs-you just have to go about it a bit differently than other dogs. However, it’s often more straightforward than people think. The information is current and up-to-date in accordance with the latest veterinarian research.

Deaf dog hand signals good girl