Deafness and The Dog

When I first met Jazz she was a playful and inquisitive border collie pup, a little bundle of black fur. It wasn't immediately obvious to me that she was deaf - but when time came to begin her training it became hard to ignore.

It turns out that Jazz was deaf from birth, having a congential condition particular to collies, associated with her other distinguishing feature. One of her eyes is a mellow brown, while the other is a shocking blue - this is called walleye syndrome, and while it doesn't affect her vision it generally also means that the affected dog will also be deaf.

Owning a deaf dog has turned out to be no different to owning any other dog, in fact she was easier to train than any other pup I've ever owned - the only difference being that she has had to be trained to hand signals instead of vocal commands. Whenever we go for a walk, she will check over her shoulder every minute a so to make sure that I'm not trying to tell her to do anything, and generally she responds immediately to commands. Not of course that she doesn't occasionally ignore me if she's found something more interesting to do - she'll just look away, as if to say "I can't see you, so I can't see what you're telling me to do..".

Of course, I would never breed from an animal with any inherited disorder - but I would never have a pup destroyed just because it can't hear, my experience with Jazz has shown that they can be just as much fun and just as biddable as any other dog.

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