Pet Calendar: Deaf Dog Awareness Week ~ Teach Your Dog To Watch You
September 18-24, 2016 is Deaf Dog Awareness Week and we reached out to deaf dog owners and lovers and experts in the pet community — Bernard Lima-Chavez and Christina Lee. They shared some of their favorite Deaf Dog posts with us. We will be sharing these posts throughout the week to help raise awareness of the beauty and uniqueness of these pets.
When communicating with a deaf dog, Bernard shares, you need to rewire your brain. Your deaf dog won’t hear you calling him or her. Your deaf dog needs to learn to make eye contact with you and look for your signals. “Watch me” is a critical sign that deaf dog owners need to teach.
Bernard says that teaching “watch me” is the first and one of the most important hand signs a deaf dog owner needs to work on. He gives tips for how to teach this valuable skill in his post: How to each your deaf dog to watch you, which you can read here.
Here are a few of the tips:
- Come up with your “watch me” hand sign
- Offer treats when your deaf dog responds
- Once he learns the “watch me” sign you can move onto other hand signs
He offers indepth how-tos in his post.
Read more about pet holidays on our Pet Calendar Year At A Glance.
