About Paws and People

Rocky’s Story

Rocky is a big inspiration to why I am a trainer, and why I train the way that I do. When he fell into our lives he was recently attacked by another dog. Rocky was pretty beat up with scars and open wounds all over his body, especially his face. We knew his current situation of living in the same household with that dog who was new to the family would not be good for him. My mother in law took him in and slowly my fiance and I took over the responsibilities of caring for him as we fell in love. He was very much stressed out from the traumatizing experience as his wounds healed and the transition to a new home. Despite his stress, we were able to see glimpses of his goofy and loving personality that came out more and more as he got more settled in his new environment and realized he was safe. He was afraid of fast movements, and now other dogs. He understandably became very reactive towards other dogs we saw on walks. Oh and to mention he was a fully deaf and crossed eyed dog. The deafness had its advantages since if other dogs were barking nearby, that alone did not set him off, only if he saw them. But it also came with other challenges that we soon learned how to manage such as how do we get his attention and how do we train and communicate with him?

He came into our lives right around the time I started my dog training journey. As I was learning I was taught to use verbal cues (commands) as well as hand signals. Without any research on working with deaf dogs I decided, well let’s give hand signals alone a try as it should still work, and that it did. He was able to learn a long list of behaviors such as sit, down, leave it, place, spin, recall, roll over, pick it up, middle, and so much more! I was able to practice my training with him, grow, and build a great relationship with him. It helped bond us as we both absolutely loved training together. He would get so excited with zoomies right before a training session as he knew when he saw me get my training bag out. It was amazing seeing a deaf dog learn all of these behaviors so fast, showing that his disability really didn’t matter. Yes, I always needed to be in eyesight to ask him to perform a behavior, but I also found out that flickering the lights on and off when inside and/or waving my arms a lot when in his peripheral vision helped! Even though he was also cross eyed, he still saw very well, except for some times when he would stare at you intensely but he was actually looking just a little off.

I went to other trainers to see if I could learn more about his reactivity being a newbie in the field, and surprisingly I got turned down multiple times because trainers were not confident about working with him with his deafness and crossed eyes upon meeting him. I figured that I had to figure it out myself, and that I did. I did a lot of research, recorded what I did, what was working, what wasn’t, and eventually I got to an amazing point where he would see a dog and Rocky would look up to me asking for his treat. Beforehand he would see a dog, lock in, yelp and cry in the most high pitched voice, lunge, and stay stressed out for many minutes after seeing the dog. It took a lot of work to get there and it was never perfect, but I was so proud of him and myself for getting there. I knew punishing him for his emotions would not work. I knew he was sensitive and already in so much fear, so using positive reinforcement methods were necessary. At the time I had no idea if positive reinforcement could help with such an intense feeling, but I proved to myself that it most certainly could. I have also proved this to myself many times after with other dogs. There are never guarantees when working with complex animals, but this gave me so much hope that calculated and smart gentle methods could make a large difference in the lives of animals. Rocky taught me so many different lessons and I will be forever grateful for our time together. If you see me, being pet CPR and first aid certified, I try to always carry a pet and human first aid kit in my backpack while working with pet parents and their dogs. I also wear a sleeve on this backpack that reads “Deaf Dog” which used to be on his leash, in memory of him. Rest in peace and love to our Rocky Boi and my inspiration who passed away in 2023 to liver disease.