puppy deafness

I've been noticing with the new puppy, Maverick, he isn't very responsive to voices. At first I thought maybe he was just getting used to us but he's still like that. Today when he was eating I slammed two plates together and he didn't even seem to notice he just kept right on eating (and the other dogs nearly had a heart attack). Although I made a whimpering noise and he looked at me and cocked his head. I don't know if maybe he is deaf or just has selective hearing. He doesn't respond to his name or positive or negative changes in your voice. I'll have to take him back to the vets I guess but could this just be a puppy thing? Also if he is deaf will that make training/socializing more difficult to him?

Deafness is a hard but not impossible obsticle to overcome in training you just have to make sure he has his attention on you all of the time for hand signals rather than voice commands and he will have to be supervised all of the time when he is outside but if he is hearing you sometimes he may not be deaf just not affected by the other noises that you are making

Since he responded to the whimpering noise, I wouldn't think he's completely deaf - if at all. He may not be really 'tuned in' to his name, and having come from a rescue, you don't really know what his life was like. It could be due to a lack of interaction with humans when he was a pup, so he doesn't know to respond to human communications yet. Not responding to the plates crashing could just be that he's not a dog who is easily disturbed by sudden noises or isn't easily disturbed when he's eating

Or he could have some hearing loss in certain ranges, being able to hear the high pitched whimpering sounds well, but not lower pitched ones.

Training and socialising a deaf dog is an interesting challenge. I once helped a client with a deaf border collie. He was great with training, we used hand signals and such but to get him to come when he wasn't watching her was the hard part. We eventually figured it out. Now when she wants him to come she stamps her foot on the ground. He picks up the vibrations.

The pup may have been used to noises. I startled my pups when 4 weeks old...to get them used to different sounds. Also, I tried to give hand signals as well as verbal commands when training. With most of my dogs living to 12 or older and loss of some hearing, it was less confusing for them.

It's hard to tell if he's deaf or just ignoring us. Like Renee said I don't know how he was raised before he came to us and he might not be sure how to react to humans yet. He does wag his tail at us every so often now (he wasn't doing it at all for two days) so I think he's getting used to us. If I yell "no" or something he'll stop but he won't look at me so I don't know if he hears me or if he just stops on his own. He has a vets appointment soon so I will bring it up with him and see if he can be tested for deafness.

When he is napping drop something loud. I will tell you that the test the vet does is nothing more than guessing. They just drop loud things around to see if the dogs responds and make their determination from that....you can do that at home!! Also try shaking a can or jar of coins and look for a reaction. Young puppies are usually not that into name recognition yet or the change in voice tone. BTW...he's used to sleeping in a shelter which is VERY noisy!!!!

that's all they do? Wow, very scientific. I thought they had things that they plug into their ears or something. You know like the human tests when they ask you which ear you hear the beep in or something. I thought I saw a show where they were putting these things in the puppy's ear to test for deafness. I've been trying to drop things and smash things together and sometimes he'll respond but most times he won't.

He probably is just really good at tuning noise out if he was at the shelter. Try taking him out of his elment (like in the car, at the park) and then see if he responds when you are all he has that is familiar to him.

I think the specialists can do more extensive testing, but your regular vet just does what you have been doing LOL!! At least at the clinic I worked at that is what they did. We would always have to refer people out to a specialist.

He may be just a layed back pup !!! If he raises his head, or opens his eyes, he heard you.

he'll slightly twitch an ear in the direction of the noise. Sometimes when we are outside he will come over to me if I call him I don't know if he's responding to his name or me waving around like an idiot though.

I wouldn't worry at this point////but keep up posted .