My little JRT is showing signs of deafness and partially blind. The vet says it is just age but it leaves me with the conundrum of how to get his attention. He doesn't hear or see Amber or Poppy racing up behind him or even his name called at normal pitch. If I screech his name he looks round at me and stops whatever he is doing. In the right light he can see me and wags his tail but in the evening or in a gloomy room he often acts surprised when he is touched. I know he is getting old but I don't feel as if it is anywhere near time to say goodbye to him as he still plays a bit, loves his walks, enjoys a chewy and generally loves life. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
My almost three year old Chihuahua X is deaf , Vet think she always has been . But , she can hear a whistle , as its very high pitched , so I use this to get her attention and then give hand signals . I don't think Nelly had had any training at all when she came to us seven months ago, but is now off lead most of the time , maybe the whistle might help your JRT ?
Tilly is nearly deaf. In the woods we use a radio collar, usually in vibrate mode to get her attention. I think some of it is selective hearing loss, but I can walk right up to her and she will be startled when I touch her.
I taught my old boy hand signals when I realised he was deaf and since he always had some sight issues, most of them were by touch as well. So a tap on the head was "good boy", tap on the butt "Go potty", tap on left or right side of face was "Turn right/left", etc. Recall was tougher - that was me waving my hands above my head like a mad woman as he could see large gestures. Of course, if he didn't want to come, he'd simply turn his head and pretend he'd not seen me. Cheeky monkey. Frankly I didn't worry too much about recall as he stuck to me like glue and if he did decide to light out, I was faster than him by that point.
Thank you all. I do have a whistle somewhere. I'll hunt it out and give that a go but I like the idea of touch signals too. I only walk him on the lead as he can be grumpy with dogs he doesn't know and a bit protective over Amber and Poppy but I do need to retrain him using something other than me screaming like a fishwife. I have seen him pretending not to hear me at times but then he gets a big surprise when I just walk up to him and pick him up!
When my very old dog went deaf and almost blind I used to take him out on a long retractable lead. I normally hate the things, but it really helped us both as he would wander off into the bushes for a sniff in the evenings and then get disorientated and not find his way back to me. It gave us both a bit more confidence!
The other thing you can do is reward everytime the dog looks at you. ive done this with moo for a while so now she checks in with me all the time. She will also return to me every so often so I've encouraged that.she's been totally deaf for about 2 years and becoming more partially sighted over the last few months. She can't hear a whistle but we do fine she's off lead as much as possible but only in safe places.
