OK, hello, good evening, thank you everybody for joining us. This evening we're going to talk a little bit about how to support dogs that are suffering with sensory impairment. I mean, obviously the, the veterinary surgery is the first port of call normally if an owner thinks that their dog may be, losing one of their senses, and so the, the practising is, is in a very good place to be able to at least initially help owners learn how to cope with the fact that their dog, is going to be affected by the loss of one of the senses.

Obviously it's possible for any of the senses to be compromised, but the most common ones, are the sense of hearing or the dog's sight. And so those are the ones that we're going to focus on particularly this evening. Before I start talking about the different ways we can support dogs that are suffering sensory loss, I thought it'd be a good idea just to do a little bit on the dog's senses.

I'm, I'm not gonna go into the anatomy and physiology. I, I'm kind of assuming you're very aware of that. What I'm more interested in is how dogs use their senses, and how it impacts on their behaviour and their emotional state.

And so that gives you a good idea of, how the loss of that sense is likely to impact them and also what other alternatives there are that we can utilise if they lose one sense, we, we can start to help them cope, by using a different sense. So looking at the senses. I'm gonna start with the sense of smell.

The reason I'm starting with a sense of smell is because this is the dog's principal scent. So, yes, it is possible for a dog to lose a sense of smell. Whether or not we're we realise that their sense of smell is compromised, we, we may not always notice it's nowhere near as obvious as it is perhaps with a dog that, loses their sight or their hearing.

But it is an important sense to have a good understanding of because even if they lose their sight of their hearing, as long as they've got their sense of smell, actually there's a huge amount that we can do because it is the dog's principal scent. So compared to humans, their, their scent ability is absolutely enormous compared to ours. This is down to a number of factors, partly the fact that the epi epithelial surface of the olfactory organ is at least 30 times the size of the the humans, and they have 60 times as many sensory cells, so there's 60 times as many cells that are actually actively processing scent as it's absorbed.

The, the part of the brain that's also devoted to, processing this information is 40 times the size of that of a human, and it's about actually about 1/8 of the dog's brain is devoted purely to, processing sent information, whereas this is a very small proportion of our brain. So it kind of demonstrates how important it is to the dog. And overall, it varies from dog to dog, but it's at least 10,000 and possibly up to 100,000 times more powerful, their sense of smell compared to a human.

And, and, you know, we're talking about, they say that they could send a, a teaspoon of sugar in a, in a swimming pool. It's, it's that sensitive. .

You'll also see that their physiology is designed specifically to enhance that sense of smell. So we've got, I, I tried to find a fancier term and somebody will have to tell me if there's a name for that little slit, that comes out of the side of the dog's nose that's created by the AA fold. I couldn't, I couldn't find a proper name for it, so I'm just gonna call it the slit.

But the purpose of that slit is because is when a dog exhales, is exhaled through the slit rather than through the front of the nostril. And the point of this is, first of all, it means that the air that's being exhaled is not diluting the air that's in front of the nostril. And it also means that as that air comes out, that causes, a disturbance in the air around the nose and causes more air to be brought into the nose.

So it's not actually an inhalation as such, but there is more air being brought into the nose as the dog exhales, which increases the amount of air available for scent detection. So say that prevents dilution and also create, increases the, the information that the dog has available. We also know that dogs scent, analyse the scent independently in each nostril.

And so we, it enables them to localise scent, so when they're tracking, they will know if the scent is stronger, slightly to the left or to the right by analysing the information separately in each nostril. We also know that because, the connection between the nose and the, the, the sensory cells in the nose and the brain is ipsilateral, I think they call it. So it's on the same side.

We know that the right nostril links to the right side of the brain and so it's linked more to novelty, new people, new situations, etc. Whereas the left side of the, the left nostril is linked to the left side of the brain. Which is used to register familiarity and non aversive odours.

So again, this just shows how much of the dog's physiology and neural processing is dedicated to the sense of smell and to getting as detailed information as possible and and activating different parts of the brain that are gonna impact on the dog's behaviour. And their behaviour patterns as well. So, the way in which they sniff, initial tracking involves shallower rapid sniffs, whereas identification involves slower, deeper sniffs.

So you'll often see a dog that's sniffing around or tracking along and then suddenly they'll find something. And that's when they almost snort, so they're taking in much slower, deeper sniffs, and they often will snort out as well. What they're trying to do there is to .

Throw up the scents so that they can absorb them and get more information there. And then following the track also relies on odour concentration, as I say, it's so sensitive that they will know whether it's slightly stronger to the left or the right so that they can track much more, much more accurately. So as you see, all of this just kind of implies how important the sense of smell is to the dog.

The sense is obviously one of those that's present at birth. And in fact, they've shown that they even learn about scents prior to birth. So, they were giving a dam in, in one, test they did.

They were giving the damn, food with anise in prior to birth. So while she was pregnant, and also, postpartuition. And then they had some other dams that they just gave before wh whilst they were pregnant before the birth, and others that they gave after birth.

And they found that, the puppies that came from the dams that had the aniseed in the food, both before and after the birth, had a much stronger desire would choose food with anise in it. So again, just showing that that obviously developed prior to birth. So there is some sort of learning going on there, sensed whilst in the, the uterus.

We also know smell has a very strong link to the limbic system, so it affects emotion, memory, and behaviour. So it's gonna have a huge influence on the way the animal behaves, and how they interpret what's going on in the environment around them. They use the sense of smell to identify people.

So, I often used to say to clients when they would feel that perhaps their dog reacted badly to certain individuals on a walk, and they would say just every so often their dog just didn't like a particular type of person, and they would say, I've tried, I've looked for everything. I'm wondering if it's men in hats or with sticks or, you know, various different, visual cues as to why the dog has a particular dislike for these people. And that's using a very human interpretation.

It's much more like the dog has, there's a sense of smell of that person, so there's something about the scent of that person that the dog doesn't like. That's how they identify people and it's also how they're going to form patterns of people that they feel safe with or are worried by, etc. They can determine gender and mood.

So there's been quite a few nice studies. I'm sure you'll probably relate to the one that, where they found that dogs, showed increased arousal in response to veterinary when, when a vet or a vet nurse is, sweating or worried. So that obviously impacted on the dog's behaviour.

And they also did a great little study where they asked people to watch videos that either made them happy or scared, and then they took sweat samples from them and analysed the dog's response to the sweat samples, and found that the dogs responded differently depending on whether the person the sample was taken from was happy or fearful. Which I always think again was a really interesting point to make to. Obviously to, to staff and also to clients that they always assume that's something about their body language or behaviour that is impacting the dog if they're worried, but actually it's purely that the dog can sense they're scared.

So even if they pretend to be relaxed and happy, the dog will sense that they're scared, because they can sense that fear. And it comes through their sense of smell. So it's a very powerful, the sense of smell, and as I say, we, we probably struggle to know if a dog is losing their sense of smell, but certainly if they lose their vision or their hearing, we can use that sense of smell to help them a great deal.

Then sound, this is the dog's secondary sense. They tend to use it either for identification of threats. It's very closely linked to the fear, fight or flight, responses.

This is why so many dogs have sound sensitivities, to perhaps things like, you know, thunder and fireworks and these sort of noises, because they, it, it's. A very strong reaction to noises that they can't identify. That's really what what worries them about these noises is they can't work out where they're coming from, so they can't assess if they're a threat or not.

And so this immediately links straight into their, their fear centres in the brain, the amygdala. They also use it for communication and their ability to communicate and, and the subtlety of the, signals that they're they're interpreting are often miss or or underestimated. So there's a couple of little videos here that will show you how, dogs interpret and other dogs growl.

Now, We all know that dogs can growl in lots of different situations, and so a growl is not necessarily always a threatening thing, dogs will growl when they're playing tug. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're being aggressive, that's just part of the game. And dogs will growl in different settings, even if they are being threatening.

So it can be, a dog that is growling because it's, it doesn't want to lose something or because it's fearful and it's trying to keep people away. To us, those latter ones sound the same, and possibly even the playground would sound the same, if we don't have the visual cue of the fact that the dog is playing a game and wagging its tail and being bouncy. But the dog can tell just from sound, and if I just play you this little video.

So that's really interesting that we wouldn't be able to distinguish those three growls, but the dog can, even without any other cue, just purely from the noise. And then the second little video shows you how dogs can also determine the size of another dog, purely again from the sound it makes. So again, it just illustrates the subtlety of the communication and the dog's response to sound, probably a lot more than we perhaps appreciate.

Dogs can hear a wider range of sounds, wider range of sounds than humans, so the, the frequency is much greater, but they can hear out and their optimal frequency is much greater, but also much lower, so they can hear lower sounds than humans. And they're better able to localise sound because of the mobility of their pinna, and also the way in which the auditory centres in the brain are developed. So again, they, they are much more attuned to sounds and much better able to respond to sound in the environment than we are.

But their vision compared to humans is much poorer. Their vision is best in low light, which would reflect their crepuscular activity. And you can see in this picture, or these two pictures, this is a, a kind of a zoom in on the, the image at the top.

And what you can see there is obviously to our eyes, in the top picture, we can't actually see that my dog is there, whereas when I actually zoom into him and lighten the picture a little bit, you can see that he's there. But he is perfectly capable of wandering around, in this environment without any need for additional, lighting or anything. He can see perfectly well.

So in that sort of scenario, dog vision is much better than human vision, whereas in the day, their vision is actually much poorer. They have a different field of vision to us, so their peripheral vision is generally much wider, very much depends on the breed, and the positioning of the eyes and the head, but their binocular vision is less effective than ours. The red rod and cone combination offers less clarity.

So they reckon that they have about 25% of the acuity of people and can see, they call it 2075, visions. So, what we can see at 75 metres, they can only see it about 20 metres. And some breeds are known to be.

Myopic, German shepherds and Rottweilers particularly, have even greater difficulty with that. This little video I'm going to show you now, I think is is quite clever. How precisely accurate this is is difficult to say, but, it does give you a little bit of an idea.

I'm just gonna skip forward a little bit. Of how a dog sees what we see. So you get the idea there, and as I say, it, it, it may not be precise, but you get the, the general gist of how dog's vision is so much weaker than ours.

That said, if anybody wears glasses like I do, then that's what my world looks like without glasses on, so I can perhaps empathise a little bit more. . So how did I, I, I've noted with that, little clip that's on the internet that people have often commented things like how does the dog find the ball?

Well, some of it will be, smell, they will know, but also movement is very important. So you find at distance, the dog is actually very focused on movement. And you can see in this video where we're we're assessing a dog's reaction, I'm using this little stuffy dog.

And people never think that, a dog's gonna react normally to it, but it does, as long as it moves. But, if you were to, if I was just to stand there with that dog, the stuffy dog, then you wouldn't get the same reaction. But because I'm jiggling it around and it's moving like a dog and I'm holding it on a lead like a dog, then the dog is going to, the, the dog that's being assessed, is going to respond to it as if it's a real dog.

And some take longer than others to work out, it's not real. So, as I say, they're relying very much on, movement at distance and shape and light and dark and and those sort of things rather than, looking more closely at, the detail of what they see. The fact that the little stuffy dog also smells very much like a dog because it's been around so many dogs, it also would convince them, I think, much more than if I used a completely new one.

They can see in colour, but they can't distinguish between red and green from the blue, yellow and grey spectrums. And also this may sound obvious, but we have to remember things like, with a small dog, there may be obstacles. So you put a small dog in long grass and it can't see where it's going, but it's sort of thing that we would tend to forget.

I will mention touch briefly because although it's not one of the senses that we're going to be looking at today, particularly, it is an important sense and it's one that we will utilise to try and help dogs cope. So dogs use touch to sense movement, pressure, vibration, temperature changes, and also communication. So in this picture you can see how one dog is putting its head over the back of the neck of another dog, which is a subtle threat signal.

And throughout this, whenever we're looking at how dogs sense the world, we have to keep in mind that breed will make a big difference to it. So dogs with floppy ears may have less acute hearing, but do tend to have a better sense of smell because the ears will funnel the scent up towards the nose. The field of vision will depend on the head shape, brachycephalic, dogs will have a poorer sense of smell than those with a normal or longer nose.

So it does vary very much from, individual and, and breed, but that's a general sense of how dogs see the world. And as I say, the point of, of kind of Seeing how dogs actually use their senses to interpret the world both enables us to understand the loss that they are experiencing, but also how we can utilise different senses to support those dogs with sensory loss. And I suppose more than anything that loss of sight or hearing is actually a less important thing to a dog than it is to us because they rely less on those senses.

So sensory loss, this can obviously be, it can be congenital, it can be gradual due to disease, or it can be sudden due to trauma or surgery. The animal's ability to cope with it will very much depend on a number of factors. If it's a gradual loss, they tend to cope better.

So if they have a sudden loss, such as due to trauma or surgery, they're much more likely to initially struggle, whereas if they gradually lose their senses, like my poor old dog here, gradually did as he got older, he coped quite well actually. And he would learn to do things like coming down the stairs, because he was losing his sight. I ended up with a very brown mark down my stairs because he would lean against the wall, and he would lean against the wall all the way down the stairs, and that enabled him to do it.

So he learned to adjust in those sort of things. The severity of the loss, so is it complete or is it partial, the number of senses is affected, so if they lose one sense, they will cope better than if they lose more than one. If there's anything else going on at the time, and also the nature of the dog, so some dogs just cope better.

Most dogs with sensory loss, especially loss of hearing or sight, can have a good quality of life, providing they get appropriate support. So how can we support them? I'm gonna start by just talking some general things that apply to any sensory loss and then we'll look in more detail at, specific, losses.

So preparation, if we know that the dog is going to lose its it's hearing or its sight, there's quite a lot we can do to prepare the dog for it. So this is usually gonna be where we're going to be performing some kind of surgery that we know means that they are going to lose their one of their senses. Addressing current behavioural issues is quite important.

They will be much more challenging to try and address once they have, once the dog has lost the sense. So if we are aware that there are problems that the owner's probably been muddling along with, up until now, it's better to try and get those addressed, particularly if you, if you're looking at where a dog has a fear of something, which is only gonna get worse. If they lose one of their senses, or has, you know, a generalised anxiety if they tend to be a, a, a generally nervous dog, if we can try and build confidence before we take away one of their key ways of assessing their environment, that will help.

We can start training new commands, so if a dog's going to lose its hearing, we can start to add in, . Hand signals or gestures and get those in place before the dog loses his hearing. I was really, pleased when I, my, my first puppy of my own as an adult, was a boxer dog.

And the way I was taught to train basic commands with her, there was always a hand gesture that went with the, the verbal command. That was just the way I was taught, and this was long before I was doing any behaviour work, and I was very, very pleased I had when she went went deaf in both ears. And so we already had all of these hand gestures that she understood and the fact that she couldn't hear me anymore really didn't matter.

And also we can make environmental adjustments. So, if we know that a dog is going to lose its sight, we can move furniture around, we can put in place ramps and steps for the dog and, ways of enabling the dog to safely access certain areas so that once it can no longer see them, it's already aware what's there. It helps a great deal, I think, to make others aware, that the dog has some kind of sensory loss, so you can use coats, you can see this little harness has got deaf dog written on it, leads with the the fact the dog's lost its sight or its hearing, and that just helps other people.

Be aware of things like the fact the dog perhaps won't be aware they're there, can't see them, won't have heard them coming up from behind, perhaps be a little bit more careful when allowing their own dogs to interact, etc. It's a good idea, it can help a great deal. Puppies, particularly important to make sure they get good socialisation and habituation.

There's a little bit of a risk that, People might be overprotective of them, but actually that can be counterproductive. It's important that they learn how to cope with the world with their sensory loss. And so obviously care needs to be taken to make sure that they don't injure themselves, but they must get out and about and learn how to explore the world, .

you know, with the senses that they have. Safety dogs, and this is particularly about a sense of safety, deaf and blind dogs may feel more vulnerable. And so what it can help a great deal if we can give them some sort of safe haven.

Lots of dogs like a crate, especially a crate that's covered on all but one side. It's not something for them to be locked in, the idea is that the, the, the door is always open. But it's like a little den, it's like a little cave, and they can go in there when they feel concerned.

They know it's always available to them. It's filled with their favourite things. Rotating blankets is really important.

We always want to get blankets nice and clean. Because we don't want the house smelling doggy, but the dog actually wants it to smell doggy. And so if we have 2 or 3 blankets in there and we rotate which one is being washed, it means we can keep them clean for our sensibilities, but there's always enough scent on there for the dog to sense it.

It's that balance so the dog can smell it and we can't. And things like adapty can help and their favourite toys, etc. So this is almost like a bolt hole for them if they're feeling in any way worried.

And also when going out and about, it's also useful if they have a similar sort of safe space created for them that they know is always there. So it can be taking a small crate if you've got a dog that's small enough that you, you can transport their crate or a cat carrier or something like that around for them that is again made accessible, full of their own scents and covered on all but one side, so it's a nice little den. Or if, if it's not practical, if you've got a larger dog, and unwashed familiar blanket.

So again, it's about this sense of smell that the dog can locate an area that it knows is safe and that goes with them and they will be able to find that and feel that that's a safe bolt hole for them. Preparing owners for the fact that current problem behaviour may deteriorate, so there are things that could possibly happen. So if they've got an existing problem behaviour that may deteriorate, or you may get new behaviours as well.

If they're becoming more anxious or fearful of things, you may get defensive aggression, separation problem if they're struggling to cope without the owner. Dogs will, that are anxious may often feel that their owner is almost a comfort blanket, and so they get separation problems when that isn't there anymore. The owner isn't there anymore, or they may develop compulsive behaviour as a way of coping with the stresses that have developed because of the anxiety.

It's important to make owners aware that. If the dog is quiet and withdrawn, that doesn't mean that they're OK. So if the dog isn't badgering the owner, isn't pacing, doesn't seem agitated, isn't developing compulsions.

That may be a good sign, but if they seem very withdrawn, they're not interacting, they're spending a lot of time sleeping or in their bed, that doesn't necessarily mean they're having a good quality of life. So owners need to be aware of the fact that if they are becoming withdrawn or shutting down, that is as strong a sign that there is a problem as dogs that are restless, agitated or vocalising, etc. In a lot of cases this may be transient, but we still need to support them because these sort of things can become self-perpetuating.

Generalised anxiety, we can use things like adapyls, so pheromones, plugins near their safe spaces, collars are very good for having a kind of sense of safety wherever they go. The escape to safety, which is the, the bolt hole that we were just talking about, consistency and management and handling. One of the things that causes the most anxiety, not only in drugs but in us is unpredictability in our environment, not knowing what's gonna happen next and whether or not it's going to be OK.

So the more consistent the owner can be. The, the more the dog will start to relax because they know what's happening next. And this can be simple things like what time they get fed, what time they are walked, what time they have interactions, their routines were being left, etc.

But also their handling. So, and we'll talk about this a little bit more, in the individual, sections. But if the dog knows precisely if they're handled in a certain way, what is gonna happen next, they will find it less distressing.

And in a few cases we might look at medication. It's not necessary in most, but if we feel that a dog's level of anxiety is such that it's interfering with their ability to learn. To cope, then medication, to artificially bring the anxiety down to a normal level, or bring their emotional state back to normal, can then enable them to learn, not to be so worried, and then at that point, they, they can be weaned off the medication.

So it's more a case of preventing the anxiety from blocking their ability to learn how to cope, rather than it necessarily being a long, long term answer to the situation. Very occasionally, in cases where I've used medication in the past, we've found that the dog has stayed on it long term because they, as soon as we try to wean them off, they deteriorate, but in most cases it is a, a transient thing, just to help them. Learn to adapt to their new circumstances.

So looking at specifically at loss of sight now, the first thing with loss of sight really is safety, because dogs will start to potentially bump into things and can injure themselves because they can't see the hazards. So things like, padding obstacles or corners, a little bit like you would with children, to be honest. You can use the sort of things that you would use for children.

So these corner protectors here for the sharp edges of the table. You can use bubble wrap around things. You can use that pipe insulation, so you get that kind of foam that snaps around pipes and that can be put round table legs and that sort of thing too.

So that if the dog does bump into them, they don't actually hurt themselves. Barriers are needed around things that are a potential risk, so ponds or sudden drops if there's perhaps a patio with that has steps down to a different level and it would be quite a drop for the animal to just walk off the end of it, then barriers would need to be put up. Dog gates across doorways into non-dog proofed rooms and stairs, so that they don't just suddenly step out and, realise that there's nothing there.

Or if it's not realistic to dog proof certain rooms, it's best just to keep them out of those. It can be quite flexible, so this is an example of, in a garden where some steps have been adapted, and there's a ramp which is purely a piece of wood with some carpet on, and then some, you can see that some plant pots have been put in on the the area of the steps. It's not covered by the ramp and there's some.

Cones, etc. To make sure that the, the dog doesn't wander off the sides. So the cones here are so that if they start to go at a bit of an angle, they're gonna hit the cone before they fall off the edge.

They can be, they can learn to cope up and down stairs, as I say, I, I probably should have taken a picture of the, the brown streak down my wall where the dog, my dog always used to just find the edge of the wall and then walk down that, and that gave him a sense of safety, so they can learn to do it. But initially it might be a good idea to support with a harness, and help them to explore themselves, and, and build their confidence gradually. Whilst they learn to cope with steps and steps will be much more difficult for little dogs than big dogs, big dogs that are able to step down to the next step without, Losing their footing on the higher step, the back legs, they're big enough to to be able to kind of keep 2 ft, on the back step whilst they move forward.

I'm gonna find it easier than little dogs that have to jump from step to step, so it's being aware of that. It may be where we've got, dogs that go onto sofas or beds, etc. That we create levels so that they don't have to jump down.

So my dog always used to sleep on my bed. And it would have been quite a jump for him to go down onto the floor, but he could easily, I just made this out of a, a cabinet with a bit of, be bed on top. Turned on its side and he could step from the bed onto the, this little makeshift step and then onto the floor, you can buy fancy steps as well.

But again, it means they don't have to take a leap into the dark, they can feel their way whilst keeping their balance. We need to be aware of not moving things around too much, or if they, if we do, we need to pet them, etc. To give the dog a chance to get to know the new locations of things, and being aware of clutter or obstacles, so something as simple as putting the washing out, can cause a problem where the dog doesn't realise it's gonna be there.

It's very tempting to keep picking up dogs that are blind to try and help them, but it can actually be counterproductive because they will lose their bearings. So if it's necessary to pick the dog up, it's important to always put them down in the same place so they know where they're going to be, whether that typically would be in their bed or a particular part of the room, so that the dog can be confident that whenever it's put on the floor, it knows where it is. Doors can be stopped from closing, so they don't walk into them, using doorstops or whatever.

Crate doors, if, if you're using a crate, should be bungied open again, it stops them, the door from closing and then the dog walking into it. Be aware the dog can't see what you're carrying, so if you've got something large or potentially hazardous, the dog is going to sense you're there, it's going to smell you, and then potentially walk into you if you've got something. Scent markers can be very good.

So what you can do is mark out the environment so that the dog can sniff its way round. And this is particularly on items of furniture and that sort of thing. You can use anything as long as it's a distinctive scent.

So you can use furniture polish, you can use air fresheners and that sort of thing. You can also get special discs that you can buy. Called traces, and these can be stuck all over the place and there are different smells that enable the dog to, know what something is.

So you would perhaps put a particular smell always on, hard surfaces, and the dog would learn to stay away from anything that smelled like that. And you might put a different scent around the beds, say, so the dog can find its bed easily and it knows that where that scent is, it's a place to go and lay down. Or you can also perhaps put essential oils and that sort of thing onto, fabric or this is a piece of kitchen roll that's just round the edge of the the leg of the table, etc.

So there's lots of ways that you can implement scents to help the dog, navigate its way around the world, . It's important to keep them consistent, that's the most important thing, and they need replenishing frequently. To keep changing the scent, it's not going to help the dog.

The dog needs to make associations between this scent means, a sleep place or a place to avoid, etc. You can also use touch, so changing substrates can help dogs navigate, so perhaps their food bowls will be on a particular. Substrate, it could be a piece of carpet or it can be anything really as long as it's distinctive, so the dog is moving around and it can find the substrate and then it knows that's where it's food and water is.

Mats or runners can be used along key locations, so. If you've got a landing or something like that, you could have a, a runner if there's a particular route that you want the animal to take, . You can use outdoors malt or bark chips around obstacles, so around the base of trees, say, or around furniture, so as they reach the bark chip they know they're about to meet a hazard.

You can also use these feelers or whiskers. So they can be made out of just cable ties, but you can buy also, this one's called a halo harness, I think there's a few others around as well, that, once the dog gets used to it again, enables them to sense when they're reaching an obstacle before they actually impact so that they don't hurt themselves. You can also use things like, planting, etc.

So in this example, I've just put a plant next to a piano leg that's by a door, and if the dog, walked into the room, then, there's a danger they're gonna walk into that piano leg, but the plant, they, they will reach the soft item before they reach the hard item and hurt themselves. And then sound you can also use, so leaving the radio on in the room the dog sleeps in so that it is, when it wakes up, whatever position it's in, it can orientate itself because it knows where the sound comes from and therefore it can navigate the rest of the room according to where the sound is. So the radio stays on, it also has to stay in the same position so they can work out where they are.

Wind chimes by doors or on fences so that they know that if they get close to that sound, that there's a hazard there. They would also learn that if wind chimes by a door, if the wind, if chimes of, making a noise, then it means that the door is open, whereas if the chimes aren't, and the door is closed. Bells on family members.

It does help them, particularly with other animals, with, with human family members, they can speak to, the, the, the blind animal. But, with other animals, or other dogs or cats, etc. It can help to put a, something on them that indicates that they are there as they move around.

You can use commands to navigate, teach the dog to navigate, so you can teach it, go left, go right, stop, lift, which means I'm about to pick you up, touch, which means I'm about to touch you because they may not see you coming. They don't see the hand coming. Suddenly this hand is touching them.

Whereas if you teach them, touch means I am now gonna touch you and you can teach specific body parts, you can teach paw or tail or ear or whatever. Recall. This needs to be very specific because they will be working purely on the sound, so it's often good to use a whistle for this and to expect to have to repeat it frequently.

So whereas with a sighted dog, we generally expect to say it once and then they will just see us and run towards us. The blind dog, we have to keep repeating it so that they can localise where we are and come back to us. You can also teach them to navigate to a knocking sound, so that, again, if you're trying to, guide them through an area of the house, you can knock on the floor and they will learn to follow the sound of that knock.

Exercise, they still need exercise. The idea is to keep roots familiar. You can teach them to hand target or a target stick so they learn to, touch your hand or touch a target stick, which is just a stick with a little bulb on the end.

And then that you can use your hand or the target stick to guide them in areas where they perhaps, can't see or there might be obstacles, or they're just feeling very worried. Or you can use something to transport them, so you could carry them or use a dog buggy. They can get these lovely buggies now for dogs to transport them.

And then take them to an exercise area that obstacle that is obstacle and hazard free. When they remember that the blind dog can't read visual signal signals from other dogs. So they will pick up on sense signals about the dog's mood.

They will pick up on the sounds that they can't pick up on. Body postures, ear posture, tail posture, that sort of thing. So I wouldn't say don't allow them to interact with other dogs, but you just need to make sure that you're picking another dog that is a very robust temperament, and also just supervise and intervene if you see any signs that the other dog is, you know, perhaps asking them to go away and leave them alone.

We can play lots of games with them, so they like contact games such as tug or hand wrestling, fetch with toys that have a bell or a scent. So this is something you would have to build up, but you have to build up fetch with any dog anyway. But if it's in a safe area, then they can still play fetch, providing they can locate by sound or smell.

Or you could do something like a treat ball or a weighted ball in a confined area, so it can be, I've seen it in small dogs in large high sided paddling pools or a small room that's got nothing in it, and the dog can still have a great time playing with that, hazard free. And of course they will really enjoy scenting games. There's a huge amount we can do for dogs that have lost their sight.

There's also a lot we can do for dogs with hearing loss, so the dog that's, that's deaf, or partially deaf. Now, again, safety is the first thing we need to consider, and we have to be aware of the fact that the dog will not pick up on cues that hazards are approaching, so they won't hear a car coming, they won't hear a lawn mower. Because sound is one of the way key ways in which they work out whether something is safe or dangerous.

It can make them a little bit anxious if they can't hear, but at the same time, they genuinely will not hear those hazards, so we have to be their ears for them. So we need to supervise them when not confined to a safe area. And in this case, it's often used to put, to put a bell on the dog, so you can find the dog if they've wandered off somewhere, and you're not able to obviously just recall them.

In the way that you would with a hearing dog. Exiting through doors first, I always managed to get the dominance, queer or dominance, idea into pretty much all of my talks. So lots of people will say, you have to exit the door first because you have to be a pack leader.

We no longer think like that. We now realise that that was based on some misinterpreted research into captive wolf behaviour in the 40s. So no, you don't need to walk ahead through doorways to prove you're pack leader.

However, with a deaf dog, it's a good idea to do it, just to make sure there's no hazards out there, the dog won't spot. Deaf dogs can get a little bit concerned about being left alone because they won't pick up on all of the cues that you're about to be going out, or they may not pick up on the cues you're about to be going out. And then when they can't find you, they might panic.

So you need to give some very clear signals, and this would also actually apply to blind dogs that you are leaving, whether that's you're confining them to a crate, depending on how safe the area is that you're leaving them in, or you give them a chew, or you have a particular hand signal that you would use to say, I'm leaving now, so the dog is aware, it's important that you that the dog is told when you're going out. Deaf dogs can get startled if they're woken up suddenly. And that can trigger a fast fear reaction potentially which could be defensive.

So this is, reflex before they've had a chance to work out it's you by scent usually. And so it's important to weight them carefully and also to teach them to be, to accept touch and expect good things to happen. And if this happens repeatedly, obviously the dog could start to become anxious.

So waking the deaf dog, you can hold smelly food or a familiar toy by the dog's nose. And the fact that they will immediately start sniffing that will wake them up and then they'll be aware that you're there. You can touch the blanket the dog is laying on, so rather than actually touching the dog itself, you would just tuck on the blanket and that would be enough to wake them often.

Make sure in the line of sight so you're not behind them or. Somewhere where they're not going to immediately see you as soon as they lift their heads. It's also a good idea just to teach dogs to expect good things when being touched.

So if they are touched when they're sleeping, instead of them immediately becoming defensive, they will immediately expect food. And this is just through the association of Touch and food, which we'll see in a video I've got, coming up soon. We start by testing where the dog is most comfortable being touched and then say linking that to food or play and making sure everybody does the same thing, including visitors.

Again, they can be spooked if approached from behind, but we will use this touch command, that we've already used. So if you're coming up behind a dog, you will be touching them in a way that they've learned to accept. Have to do the same things with people as well that are visiting the house, so they won't hear them, they won't hear the doorbell, they won't hear the door being opened, etc.

They might smell them at some point, but it's much better if we can just create a signal that says that somebody's coming into the house and they're OK. So I'm just using a arm across the body signal here. But it can be any signal that you prefer, and it's asking the visitor to let the dog approach them rather than the other way round, so the dog learns, gets to explore that person and learns they're OK before, that person tries to interact with them.

Deaf dogs may be have heightened sensitivity to touch, such as rain or wind, so those sort of environmental sensitivities and coats can help with that. And then the training, you can train dogs, deaf dogs with hand signals to do pretty much anything that a hearing dog can do. So we've got some lovely examples here of the flat handout is telling the dog to wait, the two arms out is telling the dog to come, and then the flat hand down is telling the dog to lay down, so that they can do as much as any hearing dog can do.

. And then you would use particular hand or tactile signals to communicate other things that are perhaps a little bit more than you would expect to do with a a hearing dog. So touch for attention signal is a good one first of all, and that can either be, as I say, we've taught the dog that touch means food, or just passing a hand in front of the dog's face. And this is just an example of tap for attention.

I say they're they're not gonna be any more perfectly obedient than a hearing dog, . And then a hand wave to release. So she wanted attention before she let the dog off.

The touch was look at me, look at me, and then she would allow him to run off so that she's got some good control. This dog's name is Puppy, by the way, when I keep putting puppy on here. We can teach signals that are focused.

So this is the hand touch, say once you've got that, again, this is what we talked about with the blind dogs, you can use that to be guiding the dog or to get the dog's focus on you. The finger on the nose here is to look at me. So when we would be using a watch command or a look command with a hearing dog, it's finger on the nose.

Or she's, she gets into also touch her leg. And you can, you can create commands that are the equivalent of good dog. So thumbs up, one thumb up, two thumbs up, depending on, How good.

So it becomes almost like one thumb up is you're gonna get a little treat now, two thumbs ups, you're gonna get a big treat now. And it's the difference between a good dog and a really excited, verbal response. And these can be used in the same way as a clicker as well.

So you, you can click treat or thumbs up treat, and it becomes exactly the same thing. The only difference obviously is the dog needs to have that focus. And then we've got hands out here which is signals to interrupt behaviour.

So, she's telling puppy to leave whatever it is that's on the floor there alone. And I say it's all these, these are just, heels, so her hand on her hip is the heel walking, and it's all just using hand signals rather than audible signals. We can also use light with deaf dogs, so you can see here there's a laser pointer.

That can be used as a way of either commanding what you want the dog to do or just a way of getting attention. So you would point the laser pointer where the dog is looking and it would learn that it must look at you. Obviously we have to be careful with the laser pointers not to point them in their eyes.

Lights can be used as a reward marker as well as visual, you know, thumbs up and that sort of thing. So we can. A a light flash means good dog, you did a great thing there, I'm gonna give you a treat now.

Outdoor lights can be used as a recall at nighttime, so you can switch the light on and off that says it's time to come in from the garden. You can use Vibration. We have to be a little bit careful with this.

Some dogs will be a little bit nervous of it, so things like stamping on the floor, banging doors. Some dogs will be fine with as a way of getting attention, but others might be nervous. And you can use a vibration collar, but it's absolutely imperative that it is a purely vibration collar, so you can see this image.

There are no prongs on it. This image, there are prongs. These prongs are designed to give electric shocks.

The trouble is with a lot of people who sell, shock collars is they use lots of euphemisms. To try and avoid saying it's actually an electric shock. So sometimes they will refer to them as vibration collars.

So if it has prongs, it's, it's gonna deliver shocks, and even at low levels, those shocks could be distressing and are completely unnecessary. So we need to make sure a vibration collar is purely. one of those without the prongs.

And this is just a little video, I'll just show you a couple of minutes of where she's teaching use vibration. So that's the example of how you could use, a vibration collar to teach a dog to focus on you. As you saw from that, it's very important to get the dog used to the vibration collar first because some dogs might find it a little bit worrying.

But through gradual exposure, then the dog learned not only to see it as a positive thing, but also that if when he felt the buzz, he found his owner and looked at her, he would get food. And to be honest, that's the same thing with the touch command. It's the same principle, but it would be a physical touch rather than the vibration of the collar.

But it's that same principle of getting the dog very gradually used to it, and then realising, helping the dog to realise through repetition that not only being touched is a good thing, but if when you're touched, you look at the person, you're gonna get, some kind of reward. And you see in that she was using the thumbs up as the marker. She said at one point when the dog looked at her.

Thumbs up, that was said, yes, great, you, you did exactly what I wanted you to do there and food. So it's, it's a way of communicating with the dog, when you're not getting their attention. The other thing that we do, I mean, often people may say that dogs that are deaf can't go off lead because you can't teach a recall, but it depends on the dog.

They obviously, all dogs vary and some dogs are better at recall than others, but it is possible to teach a reliable recall, and as we've already seen, puppy goes off lead. And the way she does that is because he has a very regular check-in, that means that he repeatedly looks at her. So that, she can then give instructions to him as necessary.

Obviously this needs to be away from hazards, so not really near busy roads, etc. Where the dog wouldn't hear the noises. Again, being careful about communication with other dogs because they won't hear growls, etc.

So you need to intervene. Long lines may be necessary, but it is possible to be off lead, and this is a nice example of how it can be done. So you can see how he's constantly looking at her.

So, yes, he's not perfect then, but then most dogs aren't perfect, or, or not many of them are that perfect. It was, it's sufficient that the risk is low, that he's not gonna come back, which means that he can have a good quality of life, and we should never underestimate the importance of him still being able to run off lead and sniff and do all of the things that, dogs should normally do. .

We just need to make sure that the risk of that going wrong is sufficiently low to ensure that he can have that quality of life in that way. Now obviously I've talked quite a lot about training and that sort of thing, which is, there's not really enough time to go into detail, of exactly how to do that here and, and in most cases that's not the remit of the, the veterinary practise anyway. This is more about being able to, Guide owners in what would be the best way to go about helping their dog learn to cope, and I suppose giving them the confidence that that's quite possible, if they, when they first find out that their dog's lost one of their senses.

So it's going to be likely that they may want to get some additional advice, and more detailed practical hands on training type advice and the practise is able to offer. And this is where you would refer them to the Animal behaviour and Training Council. This is the recognised body, that is, accredits both animal training instructors and also clinical animal behaviourists.

In most cases, for a deaf or blind dog, animal training instructor would be, ideal because they can help with the practical training and can usually give advice on the general sort of stuff that we've talked about today. If the dog is showing any more severe problems, though, separation anxie. If they're starting to show defensive behaviour or showing signs of compulsions, then they may, you may need to go to a clinical animal behaviourist.

But both can be found on this website. The websites in the notes. So that it's basically that the point of the accreditation body is so that you can find somebody who is properly trained, accredited, has a code of conduct, and so you can be, confident that they are going to be giving good advice.

And obviously avoiding aversive methods. And, but if you go to an ABDC person, then they won't be using aversive methods, so you, you'll be safe there. So key points, sensory compromise need not lead to a, reduced quality of life, providing that the animal gets appropriate support.

We can use one sense to compensate the loss of another, . We may need to change our comm communication methods, so we may need to add in, ways of guiding blind dogs, and we may need to move our, deaf dog communication to hand signals, light, vibration, that sort of thing, but this is all quite possible. And environmental management and specialised commands can help direct behaviour to prevent accidents.

And anxiety, the other big thing is keeping anxiety minimal and helping the dog learn to adjust is best achieved by keeping good routines, providing a safe haven, pheromones and supportive therapies, including medication in certain cases, whilst they learn to adjust. So those are the, the main points. Do feel free to ask any questions, and I hope that that's been useful for you.