Adventures in Living with a Deaf Dog Part 2

(This is the second part of a three-part series focused on living with a now deaf dog. Part One ran yesterday and Part Three will run tomorrow.)

Thinking back, the first signs that Ryan was losing his hearing may have begun a little more than a year ago at … yes … a dog show. Then it progressed little by little with me chalking up the behavior changes to other factors.

Last March, I stepped back in the obedience ring for the first time in like 15 or so years and I was super nervous. For those who may have heard of the sport, I actually stepped into the rally ring, a fun obedience-like competition that combines a number of different skills that are performed on a judge-designed course.

Each course is different so you need to learn all the signs first, (and there are almost 300 of them) then hope the ones you and your dog are best at wind up on that course.

That day, I approached the start line trembling, green-skinned, I-want-to-throw-up nervous. And, since I’d entered both Ryan and Buzz, I chose to show Ryan first because if I messed up with him it didn’t matter as much to me. (Sorry Ryan.)

And I did mess up.

But so did he.

It was a slow-motion train wreck out there in the rally ring. With me shaking and telling him to sit what seemed like 300 times in the space of about 2 minutes.

And him either not sitting right away or doing so reluctantly.

But what really blew us up was me not knowing my left from my right – and having to hesitate and think which way to turn at every sign that had a directional arrow attached to it on the course.

Then turning right when I should have turned left.

It was so bad that even when given another chance by the judge, I still turned the wrong way. So, let’s just call the whole thing an epic fail. For both of us.

I blamed myself, rightfully so, for not knowing my right from my left and have since fixed that by wearing a Fitbit on my left wrist.

I just chalked up Ryan’s mistakes to a dog reacting to my over-the-top nerves. In fact, until last week, my friends and I joked about it incessantly.

“How many sits can one person command their dog to do in the ring before their dog actually drops his butt to the ground?”

It was a running joke.

Guess the joke was on me.

For those of us who show in obedience, we sometimes call it disobedience when our dogs have a bad day and fail to listen to the commands we give them. That’s not Ryan’s way, however. He may not be precise, but, he’s always happy to do whatever I ask of him.

In fact, judges have said no dog wags his tail more in the ring than Ryan. It never stops and goes in a fast circular motion when he’s really excited. Ryan’s always up and happy and ready to take on a new challenge.

Despite his deafness, he still is.

So, now we’ve stepped up our training with both verbal and signals as a way of communication. I give him a large circular wave toward me to get his attention and “call” him from the fenced dog yard back into the basement.

A hand over my head means “down” and an open palm pushed toward him means “sit.” For those who do obedience, these signals are nothing new – they are part of a signal exercise.

But for Ryan and me, they have become our new connection and communication.

So far, so good.

(Part three of this series will run tomorrow.)