Deaf Dogs

Well on the painful part of this blog. Ivy and her hearing loss. I've already mentioned that she started having some hearing problems about age 4 right as she was about to hit her prime. But unfortunately, she hid this issue well enough that I didn't know she was losing her hearing. When she would go off course in agility or leave the sheep and come back to me or not come when I called her, I assumed she was being stubborn. I also assumed that I, as a handler, was horrible because I couldn't get her around the ring clean. Now Ivy is a fast border collie but she isn't in the same league as Gusto and many other ridiculously fast border collies. She has nice speed and is a beautiful jumper and can cover the ground nicely. There was absolutely no reason that I couldn't run her clean - or at least, that is what I was told over and over again. What was wrong with me? Why was this sport so difficult. I started to question whether I should be in this sport if I sucked so badly that I couldn't get this nice dog around the ring consistently clean.

I was spending gobs of money traveling all over the place to train and trial her. My trial record sucked! I think I Qd one in 10 times with her. So I sat back and started to observe her and started noticing some things that weren't making sense. I started to ask questions about dogs with hearing loss in one ear and had others watch us and give me some observations. I started to think that maybe Ivy was a Uni. Most of our mistakes were all on one side - when I was on her right ear. I started to pay attention to our mistakes and also noticed that indoors, she was much worse.

I found a vet that did BAER testing and made an appt assuming he would tell me that she was a Uni. When he came out of the room, he asked me why I brought her in and what my thoughts were and I told him that I thought she was deaf in the right ear. He said that I was correct BUT that she has severe hearing loss in her left ear too! WOW was I shocked. He told me that he could barely get any sounds to register in her left ear and that basically this dog was considered deaf due to the severe limitations. I took her out to my car after thanking him and paying the fee and cried.

I cried for what I had put her through unknowingly. I cried for thinking such horrible thoughts about this sweet dog and I cried for the loss of our future goals in agility.

After crying my eyes out, I cleared my head and started thinking of a plan. I had goals for Ivy - I wanted her to get her ADCH - Agility Dog Champion title. We were so close to reaching it even with my horrible Q rate. I needed someone who understood how to run and a handle a dog using mostly motion and not verbal commands.

Luckily, I had access to Barb and Rosanne DeMascio. Thank GOD for the DeMascios! They gave me hope that we could work with Ivy's limitations. Knowing what we were dealing with now, we started to change the way I handled Ivy and the way I trained her.

And I got her ADCH - 3 months after I found out about her hearing problems. She also qualified for Nationals every year since 2005 although I never took her back out to AZ. Her best accomplishment was placing 6th in Steeplechase at the NE Regional in 2007. I was very proud of her - she is basically handicapped but could still compete at a decent level once I made adjustments for her. I have since decided to drop her down to performance so I can focus on Gusto. But I will run her in agility as long as she is enjoying it and having fun. After all that I put her through, she deserves to still play as long as her body holds up!