I recently adopted a 4 month old yellow lab puppy. He came from a questionable breeder with many dogs in the home. I am concerned with his behavior. He is friendly and very calm for a puppy. My concern is that he is scared to go outside, his potty training is equal to that of a 8 week old. My bigger concern is that he shows no interest in learning or even listening for that matter. If I whistle there is no response, not even a movement of his ears. If I call him by name or pat my hands on my legs he may look at me but he does not come. I am going to have his hearing checked but would a hearing loss make such a difference in temperament?
Does he hear a piece of food dropped into his dish? That's my hearing test. I drop a piece of cereal or treat in the food dish when the dog is in another room and see if dog comes. That's how I learned my 12 year old's hearing was fading. Of course your Vet will have a more sophisticated test, maybe. My Vet simply banged two pots together over my old cat's head, no reaction, yup she's deaf. Some things you mention are not uncommon in puppies that have not been worked with. Being afraid of outside is not unusual if puppy has never been outside. Or puppy could be quite timid and afraid of your outside. If puppy wasn't potty trained by the breeder then being like an 8 week old isn't strange either. If puppy hasn't been handled and trained then I can see not coming to you being something he just doesn't understand yet as well. I would try calling his name, showing him a treat if he looks at you and giving him the treat a couple of times. I'd call this a reward. Get puppy used to a treat then call him from a room where he can't see you? My idea anyway. Was puppy vetted when you got him? By you at your Vet? I sure wouldn't hesitate to have him checked out again. Yes it can seem like a temperament problem. You probably know mothers who saw similar things with their human children till they got tubes in their ears and all of a sudden could hear properly, same with dogs. My friend's daughter was like that, poor wee thing could not hear, she's fine now but imagine how frustrating it must have been for the child.
Thank you for the advice! He was vetted by the breeder. He was dewormed and given his first round of shots. He was infested with fleas when we brought him home! I have only had him a week so we will be bringing him to our vet soon. There is no response from him when it comes to food (unless he can see it). I have a 3 year old lab mix that comes running when he hears the fridge open. There were so many dogs at this home his hearing could have easily gone unnoticed. As I said he is very friendly and loves to be pet and cuddled but overall I would say he lacks any interest in attention from people. He has the temperament of a cat lol
Does sound like a hearing problem, doesn't it. You may have heard of clicker training - training using a click noise coupled with food. The click tells the dog exactly what they got right and the food is the reward. If your pup turns out to have hearing problems you can still use the principles of clicker training to train, but using a flash from a small pen torch instead of the clicker. That would give you a way to communicate with your pup.
Hi you can do a simple distraction test which is just going behind the pup and just clap behind the back of his head he must not be aware that you are there if he reacts fine if not hearing problems. They use this on small children. If he's deaf theres loads of info out there now. Training is different obviously and recall very different, but it can be done and dogs can have a normal life. On one of the parks I use there is a deaf staffy who has really good recall and is often off lead and having fun other dogs. They wear very bright clothes so he can see them easliy and use hand signals but I think they have a collar that vibrates. He does fine and is a very happy dog infact he is probably better trained than a lot of other dogs with normal hearing. Apparently he does sometimes pretend to be blind too when he doesn't want to come back They say it was different but very rewarding training a deaf dog and they would do it again. Its been a very positive thing for them. Buster is a lovely dog. I use hand signals with my own deaf 14 year dog old which I taught him as a pup. Dalmations are often born deaf due to their colouring so you may find lots of stuff on training deaf dalmations. Any dogs which are white or have a lot of white on them are often deaf. Buster has a brindle body but a completely white head and neck.
Hello and welcome - I wouldn't be too sure yet that your pup isn't hearing properly - as mentioned above it could still be a sign that he is behind in some behaviors due to the poor treatment he got at the breeders (I think being infested with fleas is a clue about the breeder). If he is deaf, as sdegg said, he can still have a normal life. Just keep cuddling him and bonding with him for now, and encouraging him to take tiny steps forward in this big new frightening world. He's only a baby - and has only been with you a short time. How did you find him, btw? Did you get him directly from the breeder? Did you pick him up there, and see how/where the pups were kept?
I'm just stopping by to say hi after reading your replies .thank goodness you got your little dog out of that horrible environment ....I feel sorry for the other dogs . Let us know how your vet visit goes and what you discover . Best wishes Angela x
Good news, Dudley is not deaf!! Health wise he is great, he is just very unsocialized. Over the last couple day I have noticed that he responds to corrective tones and speech such as "no" or "down" but not yet to encouraging tones and speech, so we are working on that We decided to crate train and since then the potty training has been going very well. Thank you all for your help and advice!
Ah poor thing has probably been shouted at a lot Glad he's not deaf....in fact you should feel better to know that all of them have these 'temporary hearing losses' even at the age of 3 Great news that the crate training is going well.....he's going to settle in just fine with you x
Isn't that sad, that he doesn't know enough about kind voices to respond to them? Lucky you adopted him. Don't worry, all will be well and you are going to have a lovely time together.
Seems like he has landed on his feet with you Hopefully he will learn quickly what a positive voice sounds like
