Tips on Training a Hearing Impaired Dog

Regardless of age, anxiety, fearfulness or physical disabilities, all dogs are able to learn. Since every dog is an individual, pet owners should tweak their positive reinforcement training style to accommodate each dog’s needs. When training a hearing impaired dog, it’s important to follow the same principles of learning while adding a few tweaks to accommodate their hearing impairment.

Use a Tiny Penlight & Yummy Treats

Using a marker word and super yummy treats is the easiest way to teach or reinforce a dog’s behavior. However, since hearing impaired dogs are unable to hear a marker word, you need to engage their other senses, such as sight.

Replace a verbal marker with the flash of a tiny penlight. Remember, a marker provides valuable information to your dog during a dog training session. It’s like taking a picture in time and saying “yes, that’s the behavior that earned you a treat.” Using a penlight as a marker works quickly. I once taught a betta fish how to “touch” and swim through a hoop within a day using a penlight and fruit fly rewards.

When using a pen flashlight, point it on the ground right between your dog’s front feet. When a hearing impaired dog does something right, click the pen flashlight on and off. It should take less than a second. Every time you click the flashlight on/off, give your dog a super yummy treat.

Never point the light in your dog’s eyes because she can see the flash even during daylight hours—a shaded area may work best during bright sunlight. When a dog training session is complete, put dog treats and the flashlight away in a cabinet, which signals to your dog that the training session is done.

RELATED: Choosing the Right Dog Monitor Camera for Your Home

Train a Hearing Impaired Dog the “Look At Me” Cue

While sound isn’t a distraction to hearing impaired dogs, movement is. It’s important to train a hearing impaired dog to look at you when given a cue. At first, mark (using a penlight) and reward your dog every time she looks at you during a training session. Start in a low distraction area, such as inside your home, and practice 1-2 minutes each day. Once your dog learns to look at your face, it’s time to add a cue.

A hearing impaired dog will likely ignore a hand signal because she’s looking at something else, so in this case physical touch works great. During a training session, when your dog looks at you, mark and toss the earned treat a couple of feet away from you.

After your dog eats the treat, lightly touch your dog’s right shoulder and wait for your dog to “look at you.” When this happens, flash your penlight and toss the earned treat a couple of feet away. Continue touching your dog’s shoulder and waiting for your dog to look at you. Then, mark and toss a treat. Quickly, your dog will learn that a touch on her right shoulder means to look at you.

Teach Hand Signals

Dogs learn hand signals rather quickly because you use them often. Before training a hearing impaired dog polite manners, choose a hand signal for each behavior. Here are a few suggestions for hand signals:

• Come: Squat down and hold arms out.
• Down: Lower flattened hand (palm facing down) downward from waist.
• Sit: Raise flattened hand (palm facing up) upward from waist.
• Walk on loose leash: Wearing a leash is the cue not to pull.

Always Keep Hearing Impaired Dogs on Leash

Movement is very distracting, so keep a hearing impaired dog on leash at all times. If they run away, hearing impaired dogs won’t be able to hear a verbal “come” cue nor approaching cars. Keep your hearing impaired dog on leash whenever you leave your house or you’re in a yard without a fence.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Shocking a dog is cruel, and shocking a hearing impaired dog is animal abuse. [/perfectpullquote]

Stay Way From Shock Collars

There is no reason a hearing impaired dog should wear a shock collar even at the lowest setting. Shock collars hurt. Don’t believe me? Put one against your throat and have someone else press the button. Yes, it stings. Shocking a dog is cruel, and shocking a hearing impaired dog is animal abuse. Keeping a hearing impaired dog on leash and teaching her life-saving cues work better than shocking her.