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asked:
Hi Warren,
I've been reading your book but I can't figure out how to deal with this deaf dog I adopted from the Humane Society. She's a Pekinese and the vet says she's at least 12 yrs old. Right after I adopted her we found out she has breast cancer. But she doesn't know how to tell me she needs to go out to the bathroom, we can't communicate very well.
Thanks,
Helen in Glendale |
Hi Helen,
First of all, bless you for adopting a 12 year old dog to begin with let alone one that is deaf. Having trained hundreds of deaf dogs and cats over the years, you can learn to communicate with them, it's really not that difficult. It's no different that training a dog to respond to a hearing challenged person. What you need to do is find another family member or friend of yours and have them stand by the back door. You stand in another part of the house and play monkey in the middle with the dog, getting the dog really excited to the point when she gets back to that back door you take her out. If she goes you praise her to the hilt. What's going to happen with a deaf dog is, you're not going to get a dog who barks to let you know she has to go outside, but you train the dog to go between you and what she needs to do. Whether that means food, water, or having to go outside. That would be my recommendation.
Hugs & Kisses,
Warren |
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asked:
Hi Warren,
My 5 yr old cockapoo likes to eat anything with print on it. He's eaten money, checks, pictures. He'll go in people's purses, he's gone up on the desk. Things you think he won't be interested in, he'll just chew them up. He just loves eating things like that, he even loves matches. If it's just a plain piece of paper with no ink on it he won't bother with it. How can I stop this? He's eaten $60 so far!
Thanks,
Wendy in Laguna Hills |
 Hi Wendy,
Any time you have a dog, or a pet, that is specifically going after one type of item, it could mean one of two things. From a psychological reason it could mean he's just attracted and likes the taste or something. From a physiological reason, sometimes there's a deficiency in the dogs diet. If that's the case sometimes they're attracted to certain items. I remember years ago when I was training in Europe, we found out that dogs that were constantly chewing on paper and matches, lacked sulfur in their diet. There actually was a product years ago in the country called Trixie Sulfur Dog, which you added to the dogs water, and was able to resolve a lot of paper chewing problems just by increasing the sulfur in the dog's diet. So, #1 we need to make sure he's getting all the vitamins and minerals he needs. Hugs and Kisses vitamins will take care of that problem. Also understand that dogs learn through the associative memory, so for the next week or two take some of the papers he would normally go after and spray them with Bitter Yuck. What we need to do is counter-condition and make the dog realize that these items don't have this fabulous taste. However, if he's lacking nutritionally nothing we're going to do will stop him. So if you put both those pieces together you should be right on track.
Hugs & Kisses,
Warren  |
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