One of the nice things about our system, is training a deaf dog is just about as easy as training a dog with hearing. In fact, it's often easier. We're currently training two deaf dogs Honey and Zoe. One, it totally deaf, the other can't hear in loud places. The biggest thing in training any dog (for obedience) is to get the dog to pay attention to you. The other job is creating an association between a signal (pick a signal any signal) and an action. That's what trainers primarily do, help create consistent associations between a desired action and a command, or signal. My first introduction to this was while I was taking a course a few years ago. I had (this was a test) 15 minutes with each of 4 shelter dogs. In each 15 minutes, I had to teach the dog to heel, come, sit, stay, and walk over objects with me and I wasn't allowed to use my voice in any way. Of course since this was a test, it wasn't done in an environment with no distractions. We were at a dog shelter, and had about 25 dogs on each side of us barking their heads off. The 4 dogs I had to train were chosen at random. One dog was immediately put back because within a few minutes of training him, it was obvious he had prior training. He was returned to his run and another was chosen in his place. Every dog was able to do what I silently requested of him or her. Why? Consistency! Many people talk sooooooooo much, they make their voices irrelevant. They are forever praising their dog, talking and talking and talking with little or no reinforcement. To change this, we have an exercise where the owner is not allowed to speak to their dog for 10 minutes at a time. They need to get their dog to accomplish things like heel, sit, stay, and come without talking to the dog. My trainers and I have gotten so much resistance from clients when we start this, and astonished looks when their dog actually works better when they are silent. Training a deaf dog works well because we can easily get their attention. The owners are at a loss and usually don't have a clue on what to do, which makes them far more open to our suggestions. We don't rely on sounds of any kind to get the dogs attention, and we can pair anything we want to the desired action. It can be music, clickers, kazoos, whistles, your voice, hand signals, vibrations, or body language, it really doesn't matter. How and when we reinforce the results we're looking for, makes all the difference in the world. Can you hear me now? They don't need to. Have a great week, Frank Bonomo