My new Dane Puppy is Deaf

[daviddarnall]

Me and my wife have been looking to adopt a Great Dane for about a year now and we finally found a Dane puppy for sale within 300 miles of us. It was a breeder that I was already familiar with because I talked to him the year before but he had no puppies for sale at that time. He had 5 puppies for sale and they just got to be 9 weeks so he was ready to start selling them . Me and my wife wanted a male and he only had two males and me and my wife just chose the more active and alert of the two males in the hour that we spent with the dogs. We went and picked him up and brought him home and everything was great but he wasn't responding in a normal way that a puppy would. This is not our first dog we have had puppies before and I just found this odd. We just chalked it up as new puppy new environment a lot of new things, new smells, new house, let's give him some time to adjust. The next day I was out in the front yard with the puppy and I was doing some things around my garage and I noticed the puppy fell asleep in my wife's flower bed next to the garage so I just left him there. my Dad pulled up in his Jeep to see the new pup and honked the horn at me. He didn't see that the dog was sleeping next to me. The puppy did not wake up. This surprised me. I walked up to Kane (that's his name I don't want to refer to him as the puppy) and started calling his name. He was still sleeping. I clapped my hands a few times and he was still sleeping. I told my dad to honk the horn on the Jeep again and the puppy was still in Dreamland. This got me a little bit scared. I walked up to Kane and I petted him and he woke right up and got up, saw that my dad was here ran out to my dad was all excited started being a puppy again.... in my mind I was like... he really might be deaf.... I work during the week but I took Friday off to go get the new dog. This was a Saturday when my dad came over so I was going to have to wait to take Kane to the vet on Monday unless I wanted to go to an emergency clinic and I didn't feel like that this was an emergency. Over the weekend I was doing a series of tests on my own with the dog I would be playing with him and then I would let him like wander off and then I would stand in the other room and make a lot of noise and clap my hands and just see if the dog would turn and look and see the origin of the noise but I didn't get any response from him. I don't want to write a novel here so I'll just skip over to the vet... we took him in, he saw the doctor the doctor said that he was completely healthy 9 week old Great Dane he was almost 23 pounds, he was already up to date on all of his shots I just wanted to bring him in for a check-up because I always do with new puppies that I buy, and I wanted the doctor to look around in his ears. The doctor did not find anything in his ears there was no substance or debris or pus or anything in his ears. He said that he had clean looking nice pink puppy ears. I got a pedigree and paperwork from the breeder and vaccination records from the breeder... the vat ran a couple tests and gave us the news that we had already came to ourselves that our new dog could not hear... me and my wife were pretty upset after that. But even though we've only had him for a couple days we were already extremely attached to this little guy that we brought into our home to be our new family member. Honestly he is one of the best puppies that I have ever owned. He is so calm, and he is very quiet, he loves his Rope toys and loves playing tug-of-war, he only barks when we play with him, he's turned out to be just an absolute blessing for us. Earlier when I wrote that me and my wife were upset that we had a deaf dog it wasn't that we're upset because of us, we were upset because we felt bad for Kane... but after watching a lot of YouTube and reading online and buying books on Amazon about being owners of a deaf dog I don't feel bad for Kane anymore. he was born this way so he doesn't know that he's different at all. The only thing that has been hard is potty training because positive reinforcement is pretty difficult when your dog can't hear. I will take any advice from anyone has any! We've had Kane for a month now and everything is going great we love him so much I actually would not have him any other way. We have noticed that he is absolutely terrified of the dark, so we have had to buy some night lights for around his kennel in our bedroom and in the hallway and kitchen we have some motion lights that he has become accustom to really fast at such a young age. He's very smart! I completely understand being afraid of the dark because his whole perception of the world is based on vision. I could not imagine not being able to hear and then in the dark not being able to see... we're doing our best always make sure that he can see wherever he's at. the whole moral of this post is I would just love any advice from anybody on this great dane Forum that would take the time to read this huge story that I wrote. It's been a little bit of an adjustment but we could not be happier with our new family member and Kane seems to love it over at his new house as well. We just like to say that Kane is just a little bit more special.

[Michelle L]

Hi David, I'm sorry that I don't have much advice for you because I have no experience with deaf dogs, but I can feel how much you love this puppy in your post. You're right, he doesn't know he's different. One thing I've read (and I'm certain that you have too) is not to startle him awake because some deaf dogs will snap if they are frightened when asleep. Welcome to the forum and I hope that someone can chip in to give some advice.

[daviddarnall]

Screenshot_20171028-015419.png Here is Kane. He's my lil dude