Here is a great story I found on reporternews.com this morning. I sure do love happy stories about deaf dogs being saved. In this case a couple in Burton Mich. rescued deaf pit bull Norton. There were nervous and first but the rescue had already started training Norton on his hand signal commands.
(Norton, a deaf pit bull terrier, is shown at Paws for Life Rescue in Troy, Mich. Morgan Shumard and fiancé Tim Self are experienced dog owners, but they weren’t entirely sure about Norton, a 70-pound pit bull, after they fell in love with him on a website. They were unsure whether they’d be able to train him, but they developed a way to do so. Associated Press)
Morgan Shumard and fiancé Tim Self are experienced dog owners, but they weren’t entirely sure about Norton, a 70-pound pit bull, after they fell in love with him on a website.
It’s not the breed. The couple in Burton, Mich., had lost a pit bull and were in search of another. It’s that Norton is completely deaf.
They were nervous about whether they could train him, and how he would fit in with their two other dogs, a mid-size English bull terrier and a Chihuahua. They were concerned he might be too skittish and nippy to mix with their young nieces. They needn’t have worried.
A rescue group that saved Norton from euthanasia after he was left with a veterinarian taught him some basic sign language that his new family built on using treats and repetition: an “OK” sign placed on a forehead for “drop it” and a thumbs-up for praise.
“In the beginning, when the dogs would all play fight, it would get rougher, and it was a big change from being able to communicate with a dog verbally,” Shumard said. “I was worried about him being startled or running all over the other dogs, but he’s very sweet, very tuned in.”
