Does anyone else own a deaf dog?

We "adopted" a deaf American Bulldog in April 2010. It was just supposed to be a foster situation to keep her from being put down. Suprisingly, my DH, who wasn't at all thrilled about it, is the one that's become attached and won't let me place her so she's here to stay and has become daddy's girl. I pretty much don't rate with her when he's around. Akosha was about 7-8 months old when I brought her home. Her previous owners had taught her a couple of signs but otherwise hadn't really worked with her. She came with baggage, which was expected, and which we slowly figured out as we went along. We couldn't figure out for a while why she was okay with our short coated dogs but aggressive with the Keesies. Especially over food and water. It took some pestering but her former owners finally admitted that their Pekenese mix (long hair) attacked her over food when she was little and ripped her right bottom eyelid open. She's wary and barks at any long haired dog she sees so I get her out to socialize her as much as I can but our vet thinks because of her history she may never get over that.
She LOVES her people, especially kids. She extremely smart and has continually suprises me how quickly she picks up new signs. She's also learned that if she doesn't look at us, we can't scold her because she can't see us scolding her by signing NO. DH has taken a bit longer to get the signing down and still forgets that she can't hear him.
Funny story...I was at the back of the house one day when I hear DH hollering her name. She slipped out the front door. I look across the dog yard to see her running towards the barn, DH chasing her yelling "Akosha, come!" I yelled " Hon, she can't hear you", so he starts using the sign for come while still yelling for her. I said "Hon, she can't see you either...how's that working for you?" About that time, she ran into the barn through the side door. Now, at this point, she's not been introduced to the horses and one of the stalls is right there. She came out the door backwards faster than she went in, crashed into DH and knocked him flat on his hiney. Fortunately, the only thing injured was his pride, but he was so mad. I hate to say all I could do was laugh but I did ask him if he was okay.

Here's our Koshie



Daddy's girl



Favorite tuggy

 

Quote:I have one of those husbands too. He'll swear I didn't tell him something even if I've told him a dozen times.
She is too smart for her own good.

 

I have a vibration training collar I'll use if we're doing a training session but she mostly ignores it. Now, using food is a different story. I've found the squirt bottle is very effective as a deterent.