How do I let my dog know I love him and he’s a good boy? He has lost his hearing

[healme]

He’s nearly 11 and has been gradually losing his hearing, but it is officially gone now, I have brought him to the vet to see if he had an ear infection that somehow made it worse, but it’s just age. I’m heartbroken.

He’s the kind of dog where you tell him “hello” and his tail furiously wags and he trots to you, he can’t hear me now. He’s sometimes asking me to open the back door and he smells the air, I feel like he just wants to hear something but it doesn’t work.

His tail hasn’t been wagging like it used to, because he can’t hear me talk to him. I give him pets and cuddles but he wag isn’t the same. How can I let him know how much I love him when he can’t hear the tone of my voice?

 

[scottygrl]

@healme Talk while touching him. Not like while you're rubbing him or moving your hand around, but just glomp a big old hand on him and hold it there and talk. With luck, enough of the vibrations of your voice will get through.

 

[congee1965]

@scottygrl I was just going to say, press your face right against his head near his ear (like a super snuggly snuggle) and talk to him. Depending on which type of hearing loss he has he may be able to sense some vibrations. Either way he’ll love the snuggles.

Update: I just tried this with my dogs and they both looked at me like I’d lost my dang mind. YMMV.

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@congee1965 This is so cute!!

 

[healme]

@congee1965 I have been doing this! It’s not easy as he’s quite fluffy.

 

[immanuelmark]

@scottygrl I also feel like this is useful to transmit your body energy through your hand to your doggo. While we may think dogs need to hear love because we need to hear love, dogs do not operate under human emotions and/or the way we perceive them! Human-dog connection is very deep and relies way more on body language and their reception of our energy than what we say to them.

If you connect with your sweet boy, they can feel your love, they can smell your love (do not underestimate their ability to smell emotion, the human body does give off scent related to emotion, we will never smell that, dogs can), they can sense your love. Same as they can sense a bad apple. They don’t need to hear the apple tell them it’s bad.

 

[lytova]

@healme I can tell how much you love him and I know he still does, too. A lot of people I know with deaf dogs have hand signals that mean "good girl/boy," I've seen people use two thumbs up or sign language for "I love you." If you a consistent hand sign every time in the same context/situation & same body language/expression you would usually sweet talk or praise him, I think he'll pick up on it. Hand sign cues can also replace verbal cues for things like sit, come, etc, there are lots of resources if you look up training deaf dogs. Best of luck and I'm glad he has you

 

[hassack]

@lytova Yes! Use those hand signals! Also (and this might sound goofy), you might want to do an excited wiggle when you see him. I do that with my puppers and it gets them very excited, too.

I know you love your boy and he does, too. He might just be struggling a bit with completely losing his hearing.

 

[karyn]

@hassack Yep, a little dip down like a puppy bow & a little wiggle always gets my dog excited to play

 

[stsivo]

@lytova As a deaf dog owner (born deaf), your dog definitely will know absolutely everything you want him to know. My dog has a thumbs up for “good boy”. I also wave at him with a big fat smile on my face to tell him hi and he wiggles his fat ass n gets soooo excited. His commands are all hand cues so he knows exactly what you’re saying. I use some ASL for words like “inside” or “play” or “upstairs” or “bathroom” and “water” others I completely fuckin make up like “enough” or “back up” or “quiet” and with some training he gets it. Those are just some commands he knows, you’ll start to build a big ass vocabulary as time goes on When I play with him I use “claw hands” and make a silly face so he knows I just wanna play and he absolutely fucking loves it lmfao. Also he’s a big reader of body language so if you’ve got an upset/mad look on your face he’ll know. If you’ve got a big smile on your face he’ll know.

I have yet to train a vibration collar consistently but a lot of deaf dog owners have them so you can call them over to you instead of waving your hands like a lunatic n hope they see you, or instead of tapping on the floor so they feel the vibration, or instead of physically getting up n tapping em. I use a long line for him as I don’t trust him being off leash and it’s dangerous for his safety in general (unless at a dog park but he loves to run so getting him back is rough so I’m going to start using a vibration collar for recall).

Your dog can still have an enriched and happy life and understand what you’re saying even if he can’t hear ya

 

[chaval]

@lytova Our rescue elderly dog has learnt sign language while in the shelter, we continued to nurture sign language and he now knows sit, down, no, good boy, and I love you- all of which he responds to. To attract attention we gently tap his bum or head