{"id":12208,"date":"2015-09-22T16:38:29","date_gmt":"2015-09-22T06:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/puppy.kreatology.com\/?p=12208"},"modified":"2024-01-17T18:22:16","modified_gmt":"2024-01-17T07:22:16","slug":"5-sound-bites-about-deafness-in-dogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/puppytales.com.au\/5-sound-bites-about-deafness-in-dogs\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Sound Bites about Your Dog\u2019s Hearing Health"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Does this scenario sound familiar?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019re walking in the park when an owner calls \u201cCome\u201d or \u201cHere Boy\u201d to their dog. Not very far away, their dog stands stock\u00adstill, ears pricked, wearing a puzzled expression. The owner calls again and the dog glances anxiously from side to side. It\u2019s only when the owner claps her hands that the dog springs to life and runs straight to the owner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s likely this dog is suffering hearing loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last full week in September is \u201cDeaf Dog Awareness Week\u201d, so with this in mind let\u2019s look at 5 \u2018sound bites\u2019 about deafness in dogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"5<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#1: It\u2019s Not just About Old Dogs<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What age do you associate with deaf dogs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps you assume that deafness in dogs is an issue only for older dogs. That would be incorrect. Just like people, dogs can acquire hearing problems at any age. Of course your average dog doesn\u2019t attend rock concerts or work with heavy machinery, but they can still suffer damage to the delicate hearing mechanism when exposed to prolonged noise or loud sounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there are the dogs with genes inherited from their parents which mean they are born deaf or will lose their hearing at a young age. Hereditary deafness is recognised in over 60 breeds, including the Australian cattle dog, Border collie, Cocker spaniel, Dalmatian, and English setter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another factor that makes deafness more likely are the genes for a merle or white coat with blue eyes. These pups are deaf at birth, but often hide their disability by reading their littermates\u2019 body language and following their noses to food. It\u2019s only when they are homed and training starts in earnest (but the pup doesn\u2019t make progress) that suspicions of deafness in the dogs arise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#2: Could Your Dog have Hearing Loss?<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You may joke about \u201cconvenient deafness\u201d, but what if the dog isn\u2019t just tuning out but genuinely doesn\u2019t hear your commands? One giveaway is if they don\u2019t materialize for favourite activities such as eating dinner. Test this out by changing mealtime (so they\u2019re not expecting it) and prep as usual. See if the dog hears the kibble cascading into the bowl or the metal spoon dinging on the side of the bowl as you mix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One up side of deafness is the dog may no longer react with fear to the sound of a vacuum cleaner, hair dryer, fireworks, or thunderstorms. If your dog takes an unexpected turn for the better in these situations\u00ad consider that hearing loss could be a possibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When testing your dog\u2019s hearing, experiment with different types of noise. Banging pan lids together is a favourite, but best done behind the dog\u2019s back. A drawback to these types of test is air movement. Dogs\u2019 whiskers great motion detectors and those pans lids waft air to which the dog might respond and yet they can\u2019t hear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Relying on one sound is not sufficient to reach a conclusion because different parts of the hearing spectrum can be lost \u2013 high tones or low tones. The commonest type of hearing loss is due to damage to the delicate hairs in the cochlea of the inner ear, and which sound frequencies are lost depends on the exact location of the damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As people with hearing loss know, there\u2019s a big difference between hearing a sound and being able to interpret what it means. Think of the untuned radio scenario. You hear static noise but the speech is garbled. This happens with our dogs \u2013 they hear a sound but can\u2019t differentiate “Come\u201d from \u201cSit\u201d or \u201cFetch\u201d \u00ad a very confusing world for a dog to live in, especially when they\u2019re expected to obey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Australian
Australian Cattle Dog Liberty Belle is deaf<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

#3: Can my Young Adult Dog become Deaf?<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Age is a major cause of deafness but, just as for people, there are other risk factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medications<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

This is nothing to panic about because the risk is extremely low, but some drugs may have the potential to cause deafness. These drugs tends to have specific uses such as shifting fluid for a dog in heart failure, chemotherapy agents, or strong antibiotics used to treat resistant infections. Their use against potentially life\u00adthreatening conditions needs balancing against a tiny risk of hearing damage, and the decision to treat made accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ear Infections<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One difference between people and dogs is the latter may have a long\u00adterm ear infection the owner hasn\u2019t spotted. At the low end of the scale discharge and debris fills the ear canal and muffles sound, at the other extreme an infection in the middle or inner ear can gum up the delicate mechanism and cause profound hearing loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Loud Noises<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A human exposed to over 100 dB (a power saw, motorbike, or a train 20 feet away) for 15 minutes is at risk of hearing loss. How much more could our dogs\u2019 hearing affected, when their hearing is so much more sensitive to start with?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#4: The Gold Standard Test of Hearing<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you want a definitive answer as to your dog\u2019s ability to hear then they need a BAER (Brainstem Auditory Evoked Response) test. This test is used on newborn babies and is painless; indeed the dog doesn\u2019t even have to be awake during the test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In simple terms the dog wears headphones and listens to a series of clicks. Small electrodes placed on the scalp measure the brain\u2019s response to the clicks. Hey presto, a map builds up of which ear is affected and how badly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Deaf
But being deaf doesn\u2019t stop Liberty Belle from being cheeky or having a wonderful life.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

#5: Living with a Deaf Dog<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The good news is that deafness alone doesn\u2019t have to impact on your dogs quality of life! With patience, caring and learning different methods of communication, you and your dead dog will still have a wonderful life together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are our quick tips for living with a deaf or loss of hearing dog:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • A deaf dog\u2019s other senses take over and your dog is more dependent on touch. Be mindful that your dog may have a greater need to see you or to touch you, to feel
    reassured.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Keep your dog on a leash near roads, as they won\u2019t be aware of traffic or your commands.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Use hand signals along with spoken commands (some dogs do appear to lip read when close enough).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • If you use a training whistle and your dog\u2019s response becomes patchy then consider your dog may have partial deafness, for example they may no longer hear extreme low or high tones. Rather than assuming they are being disobedient, it might be switching to a combination of hand signals and spoken commands will do the trick.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    So, this \u201cdeaf dog awareness week\u201d why not spare some time to assess your dog\u2019s hearing health because deafness isn\u2019t only about older dogs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Does this scenario sound familiar? You\u2019re walking in the park when an owner calls \u201cCome\u201d or \u201cHere Boy\u201d to their dog. Not very far away, their dog stands stock\u00adstill, ears pricked, wearing a puzzled expression. The owner calls again and the dog glances anxiously from side to side. It\u2019s only when the owner claps her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":19221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vet-care"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/puppytales.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/puppytales.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/puppytales.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/puppytales.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/puppytales.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/puppytales.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/puppytales.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/puppytales.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/puppytales.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/puppytales.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}