This is the story of how I met my deaf white boxer puppy Nitro. He is the head dog here at Deaf Dogs Rock. If it wasn’t for Nitro there would be no Deaf Dogs Rock.

 

 

My name is Christina Lee and this is the story about my deaf dog Nitro. He was found down by the river on Front Street in Salem Virginia in November 2010 by a City of Salem Animal Control officer. He was taken to the Salem Animal Shelter where they discovered this 10 week old pup was completely deaf. I go by the Salem Animal Shelter often to take photos of the pups up for adoption to list them on Facebook and when I spoke to my friend Rebecca Custer (she is the City of Salem Salem Animal Shelter Director) and told her I was coming by to take some photos that week she said she had something she wanted to show me. I was thinking she must have a new litter of puppies she wants me to photograph but no, she had a different kind of surprise in mind. When I got to the shelter that cold winter’s day in November, she showed me a very thin little white boxer that was 100% deaf. She asked me if there is anyway my husband Chris and I could adopt this dog.

You see Rebecca and I had become friends through our love of horses and she had been out to my farm and knew I had secure 6 foot tall dog fencing (and a big yard). My farm is called Bluebird Farm and Rebecca knew this would be the best place for a deaf dog to grow up. There was one problem though, I already had three dogs and three horses and I didn’t know anything about training a special needs dog who could not hear. I told her I would think about it and get back to her. I went home that evening and told my husband Chris the story of the poor little skinny white deaf boxer and I showed him a photo of the pup. He just looked an me and said “go ahead and call Rebecca and tell her we will be by in the morning to pick up our new puppy and then lets get over to Petsmart to buy a crate, a deaf dog tag, and puppy supplies for our new puppy”. I couldn’t believe my ears!  Now who does that? Who just looks at a photo of a funny looking, pitiful little white dog who happens to be deaf and just jumps right in and says yes lets go get him? My sweet husband Chris does, that’s who!

So I made the call to the shelter to let them know we would save the deaf puppy and all I could hear on the phone was all the girls who work at the City of Salem Animal Shelter all screaming with joy. They told us we had made their day with the happy news. Later when we went to pick up Nitro they told us they were so afraid someone would walk in the shelter, adopt the deaf puppy and hear later the dog had died.  They feared the pup would only have to escape once in the city to be hit by a car because he could not hear a car coming. That night, Chris and I went to Petsmart and purchased a crate, food, toys, a dog halter, a  leash and we had a special dog tag made with the name Nitro on it and under his name was (DEAF DOG). We wanted to be prepared the minute we picked up our special new puppy.

We went home that night and stayed up until 1:0o a.m.  reading and watching videos on deaf dog training and what would be the best way to train our new pup. We did discover there is not a whole lot of resources out there for new owners of deaf dogs. We watched one particular video over and over again to get some of the ASL training signs down. We decided we would use American Sign Language on Nitro and I would have to also learn the basics of ASL.

Here are photos from the morning we went to pick Nitro up from the City of Salem Animal Shelter.

We went the next morning to pick up Nitro and we also made an appointment at my Vet to have him microchipped right away just in case he got loose. We then went home and did the introductions to our other three dogs. The dogs were out playing in the back yard within the same hour of being introduced although our Min Pin Lexi didn’t really want anything to do with this new Nitro guy. Little Miss Lexi still to this day barely puts up with his silly antics. We had to make sure Nitro wore a sweater at all times when he was outside in the cold because of his thin coat of hair.

Below is a photo of our little boy in his new blue sweater and his new blue ID tag. Such a handsome boy!