0203: Raising Deaf Dog Greta with Jodi Vogler

Jodi Vogler tells us about the challenges and joys of raising her family’s hearing impaired dog, Greta.

Follow Greta’s Facebook page Greta Go Go. 

Join a community of dog lovers at DeafDogsRock.com.

If you order A Deaf Dog Joins the Family, please consider choosing Rosie Fund as the beneficiary charity.

In this episode, I reference our interview with dog behaviorist researcher Dr. Ellen Furlong. I also mention our interview with Missouri Patriot Paws service dog trainers Jay and Sandra Sindeldecker. All of our episodes are available in our archive.

Recent guest Ashley Schanz is now online at schanzssketchbook.com in addition to her Facebook Page Schanz’s Sketchbook. You can commission Ashley to sketch a beautiful memento of your pet with the proceeds benefiting charities. This makes a great gift, especially if you know someone who has lost a pet. Please use the keyword “Rosie” when you contact Ashley if you want Rosie Fund to be the beneficiary charity.

Celebrate 5 years of Rosie Fund by supporting our campaign to sponsor 50 dogs. You can donate on our website or Facebook page. You can also contribute by making a purchase from the store on our website or buying a t-shirt at Bonfire.com.

At Rosie Fund, we encourage you to make a difference in a shelter dog's life. You can do just that by purchasing one of our “We save each other” t-shirts on our page at Bonfire.com. All proceeds go toward supporting our mission to help senior and harder-to-adopt dogs have a better life.

Visit RosieFund.org for links to all of our social media, including our free YouTube channel. Please subscribe to our channel to help us secure the Rosie Fund URL.

Music for this episode is provided by alternative string duo, The Wires. Visit them at TheWires.info. Learn fiddle and cello-fiddle online — even if you've never played before — from Laurel Morgan Parks and Sascha Groshang at FiddleLife.com.

The transcript for this episode is available on the Dog Words Buzzsprout page:

Make a donation at RosieFund.org or through our Facebook page. You can contribute by making a purchase from the store on our website or buying a t-shirt at Bonfire.com. Also check out our page on BarkYours, the online mall with gifts for people who love their dogs.

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Transcript

JODI  0:03 
The connection was immediate. She was the first puppy that crawled up in my lap and curled up and went to sleep and decided that I was hers.

PHIL   0:14 
I'm Phil Hatterman and this is Dog Words presented by Rosie Fund. Jodi Vogler tells us about the challenges and joys of raising her family's hearing impaired dog, Greta. The Greta Go Go Facebook page is linked in the description along with links to a few items we discuss in our conversation.

If you're new to this podcast, and each episode we explore the world of dog care and companionship. "We save each other" is the motto of Rosie Fund, which simply means the more we do for dogs, the more they do for us and they already do a lot. If you love dogs, you'll love Dog Words. We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions. Go to the podcast page at RosieFund.org to share your thoughts. We welcome suggestions for topics and guests. That's the only way we know which ones you like. Then we'll try to deliver more of those. Please download subscribe rate and most importantly, share Dog Words.

Celebrate five years of Rosie Fund by supporting our campaign to sponsor 50 dogs. You can donate on our website or Facebook page. You can also contribute by making a purchase from the store on our website or buying a t-shirt at Bonfire.com. Links are in the description.

Please follow Rosie Fund on social media especially the free Rosie Fund YouTube channel that offers great videos Rosie, Peaches in her friends, and shelter dogs including some exclusive content. We just posted a new Missouri Patriot Paws video of a service dog in training.

Remember you can commission recent Dog Words Guest Ashley Schanz to sketch a beautiful memento of your pet with the proceeds benefiting charities. This makes a great gift especially if you know someone who has lost a pet. Please use the keyword Rosie r-o-s-i-e when you contact Ashley if you want Rosie Fund to be the beneficiary charity. Go to Ashley's Facebook page Schanz's Sketchbook or her new website SchanzsSketchbook.com. Both are linked in the description.

Next time on Dog Words Leib Dodell shares exciting news about Bar K Dog Dar.

The mission of Rosie Fund is to provide humans with the resources and education they need to give senior and harder-to-adopt dogs a better life. We thank you for joining our mission.

Joining us on Zoom today is dog owner and I'm going to assume dog lover Jodi Vogler. Welcome to Dog Words, Jodi.

JODI  2:34 
Thank you. It's good to be here.

PHIL   2:36 
You have a beautiful and delightful dog Greta that we will be talking about in a moment. But first, Have you always been a dog lover? Did you grow up with dogs? What's your dog history?

JODI  2:50 
I have a rich and long dog history. My family had a dachshund when I was born. Her name was Dog — very creatively named — and we have just had a constant string of dogs in the family. Since then, we tried fish and birds and other pets just didn't stick. We always came back to dogs. So I can't honestly remember a time in my life of more than just a few months where I didn't have a dog in my life.

PHIL   3:19 
If you like John Wayne movies, I'm pretty sure it's Big Jake, where his dog is named Dog. It's a collie.

JODI  3:25 
Yeah, that's great.

PHIL   3:27 
I'm sure they got it from your family. Somehow that inspired the screenwriter.

JODI  3:31 
I'm sure they did! I'm certain that's how that came about. Yes.

PHIL   3:35 
So you grew up with dogs. You always loved dogs. We've talked about this a lot on this show how, in general, our society's relationship with dogs had changed. Because I grew up with dogs. We loved dogs. But we certainly didn't plan our free time, let alone our vacations around what's available for a dog? What hotels are dog friendly? Was that your evolution as well?

JODI  4:04 
It was. We always had someone who was able to watch our dogs when I was young. If we were going out of town, and we did frequently do you know week long trips in the summer when I was growing up. And there was always someone we trusted, who was available to watch our pets back then we did not use the boarding services at our vet. Now I have a great vet and a good relationship with the staff there. And so that is where Greta goes if we go out of town.

PHIL   4:31 
Now when I was a kid, if you'd asked me, "Are there boarding services for dogs?" I don't think I would have even understood the question.

JODI  4:37 
Right, right. I don't remember those things being around when I was younger, even up through my teens and possibly early 20s. That was just not an option that was available in my community.

PHIL   4:47 
A year or two ago — time distortion with COVID I don't know how long ago this actually was...

JODI  4:54 
Two months. Two years. We don't know.

PHIL   4:57 
My wife Dawn and I went on a two week trip. And we did a test long weekend so that someone could house it and spend time with Peaches to make sure that it would work for us to be gone for two weeks. We even did a test run of a dogsitter.

JODI  5:12 
Yeah, no. That's very important. Yeah.

PHIL   5:16 
'Cause, yeah, when I was a kid, we would just call a neighbor or relative and say, " Could you come by for a day or two and just make sure our dog has food?"

JODI  5:23 
Mm hmm.

PHIL   5:24 
Because the dog would just be roaming free on the farm.

JODI  5:26 
Yeah. And we reciprocated that with with neighbors when they would go out. So it was...

PHIL   5:31 
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, we certainly weren't paying anyone.

JODI  5:33 
Hmm, no, no, it was more like a t-shirt from my trip.

PHIL   5:37 
It was understood that there will be considerations. Now you have Greta and tell us a little bit about Greta.

JODI  5:45 
So Greta is — she will probably make a cameo here in a while — she's a very, very alert very vocal dog. I hear some deaf dog owners say that their dog's barks sound a little bit odd. Greta's a full throated barker. I tell you what, she does not have any limitations in that department. And she is very watchful. So she will probably be looking out the window and and alerting us to all of the potential threats from leaves and sticks and the occasional vicious squirrel. She has a deep hatred for all things small and furry. Which is odd because she doesn't eviscerate toys. Like she's usually very gentle with toys. But any living thing out in the yard is is just public enemy number one. So she's pretty loving. She doesn't cuddle that much because she is far too busy. She'll lay down for maybe 45 seconds in our laps, or you know, rest for for a brief moment. But then she's immediately up and patrolling again. So just just very, very alert.

PHIL   6:52 
Do you know how we read or her mix?

JODI  6:55 
Yes, she is a Llewellin setter.

PHIL   6:57 
And is that typical for the breed? Are they uh kind of a busy body or working dog kind of like a border collie? It has to be on the clock or off the clock? There's no in between?

JODI  7:06 
Yeah. I think setters in general are just very, very vigilant, very watchful, and certainly high energy. So she fits all of those categories to a tee. And I think sometimes her deafness plays into that, in a way, because she, she just needs to watch everything. She needs to put her eyes on everything. So yeah, she is ever ever watchful for us.

PHIL   7:30 
Well, if you think about how powerful a dog's hearing is, then to take that away a dog, would — it makes sense to me, I'm no expert on this — would be hypervigilant with its other senses.

JODI  7:46 
Yes. Yes.

PHIL   7:47 
And I'm not, like, mythologizing this or — I'm not sure what the term would be — where they, you know, people say that, "You know, if someone's deaf they have this heightened sense of smell!" It's not that they can smell things we can't, but they're more attentive or tuned to it because they don't have the option of listening. And same thing with dogs.

JODI  8:09 
I think so I think she relies on her other senses even more so and and therefore maybe exercises them a little bit more. I don't know that she she definitely doesn't seem to smell any better than our hearing dog Jasmine does. But yeah, I do I do think that she relies on her other senses much more since she doesn't have her sense of of hearing.

PHIL   8:31 
I want to talk about her relationship with Jasmine for a moment.

JODI  8:35 
Hm Hmm. Yeah.

PHIL   8:36 
Does Jasmine have other dog friends who can hear?

JODI  8:42 
Jasmine is our black lab. She is eight years old. And she is a trained bird dog. She's my husband's bird dog. And Greta also comes from a very birdie line. Great hunters in her lines as well. So it's just different. Different hunting. Jazz is a waterfowl dog and Greta comes from upland bird hunter stock. They are in every way big sister little sister that's that's the dynamic that we see here a lot. Jazz is a very calm, kind of quiet leader. She's very patient. But she will let gretta know with some kind of a snap or there's usually a physical you know the the hair rising on the back of my my back to let her know that' "Okay, Okay, whippersnapper. We've we've had enough. It's time to shape up." But she has been a really great influence on Greta. And I feel like there have been things that we haven't really had to train her to do because Jasmine has done it for us.

PHIL   9:44 
The physical cue leads me to my follow up question. Does Jasmine seem to know that gretta is different from other dogs? Does Jasmine seem to know that Greta is deaf?

JODI  9:56 
I don't really know that. I know that Jasmine has found ways to communicate with Greta. So that would be my my instinct would be yes, but she she recognizes that there's something a little bit different about this one. And the odd thing is that that Jasmine has picked up on all the signs that we use with Greta. So we don't have to talk to Jasmine anymore. We can just use the signs that we use for Greta and she responds to all of them.

PHIL   10:24 
When you adopted Greta what was your awareness? Did you know that Greta was deaf? Is that why you adopted Greta?

JODI  10:32 
Now that is a fun story. That goes back...

PHIL   10:36 
We're counting on that.

JODI  10:37 
Oh, good, good. So I have a friend — ironically, her name is Dawn, as well — and she and her family are the breeders that we got Greta from. They raise Llewellins and I had just lost my yellow lab, my 12 year old yellow lab, Stella. It was just heartbreaking to have a dog for so long. We were so close. She was my bestie. And I had just gone through this in June. And within a week or so, you know, I'm texting my Dawn about it and lamenting and reminiscing, you know, of course, the good memories that I had of her. And Dawn said, "Well, I don't know if you're aware, you know, timing wise, but we just had two litters of Llewellin setter puppies born on the farm within a few days of each other. So what you need to do is you need to come down to the farm and just get covered in puppy. It'll be great therapy. I highly recommend it." And I hedged a little bit. I wasn't really sure that it was time. I thought, "Oh, that just feels like a betrayal of Stella." You know, I wasn't quite ready."

PHIL   11:45 
I know that feeling.

JODI  11:46 
So I did eventually give in. It was probably over a week later. And so we'd communicated about a time that I could come to the farm and to spend time with those puppies and just get covered in love and hair and puppy breath and all of that. And just a couple of days before. Now this was the end of June. And then fourth of July happened before I had this appointment for puppy therapy. And just a couple of days before I went to the farm, Dawn texted and said, "So we have this puppy who absolutely slept through the Fourth of July. We had fireworks on the farm and she didn't respond to any of them. And we've done some little anecdotal tests since then. Just banging a pot near her head. No response. We are 99.9% sure that this puppy is deaf. So you should just plan on taking your home with you when you come down to the farm. And I threw on the brakes really quickly. I'm like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! I've never had a dog with a hearing impairment. Certainly not a puppy. I don't know how to do this." She said something to the effect of, "Well, the internet is a thing that exists. you should probably check it out." So I I did some research. And that was when I found the Deaf Dogs Rock nonprofit organization. They have a website and a Facebook page and then several groups that have kind of splintered off of their Facebook, their main Facebook group.

PHIL   13:19 
And we will link to them in the description for this episode.

JODI  13:21 
Wonderful. Yes. And they have been super helpful. It is full of deaf pet owners who are sharing their stories, who are introducing their dogs. You know, "This is my new puppy. I'm looking for advice." And then all of those previous owners just pile on with, "Uh! What a beautiful dog. Here's the thing that helped me the most." And so seeing those interactions and then having that resource. I also through Deaf Dogs Rock found a book called A Deaf Dog Joins the Family. It's by Terrie Hayward. And she is a dog trainer who's based in Puerto Rico, who offers video conference consultations with dog owners, particularly deaf dog owners, but any owner actually. And her advice is very positively oriented. I really connected with all of that. So having some time to do all of that research before I actually went to meet Greta, I felt prepared. So I was at the point when I went to the farm that, "Okay, if I love this dog, if I really if I connect with this dog, she is going to come home with me." I did have to get the family on board and my husband was probably the most reluctant just because he has always had hearing dogs and particularly hunting dogs who rely on their hearing for the most part. So he was the last to get on board.

PHIL   14:50 
Well, and not just with hearing. People who are dog people I have found tend to be — they love pitties or they love corgis or they love big dogs or something. They have sort of a style of dog that is their type. And so something outside of that type, that's a dog for someone else.

JODI  15:13 
Yes. Yes. This, "I don't know. That's a ..." And I think among even among lab owners, sometimes they're, "Oh, well, you have a chocolate lab, you know, well, that's not a, that's a black lab. That's not a yellow lab, you know." So they tease each other that way. But I definitely think that that played a role, just the unfamiliarity with the breed, and not knowing really, you know, what to expect from her, and then add her deafness. So it's like, "Wow." But I sure did go to that farm and she oddly, it was very strange, the connection was immediate. She was the first puppy that crawled up in my lap and curled up and went to sleep, and decided that I was hers.

PHIL   15:55 
We've mentioned many times on Dog Words that the dog will pick you.

JODI  16:00 
Mm hmm.

PHIL   16:01 
I see it all the time at the shelter, too, that people think they've picked a dog but you can see it as you're standing back watching them move from kennel to kennel. It's the dog that responds to them that draws them in that they think they are picking when it's the dog that has made the connection from there end.

JODI  16:19 
Agreed. And the sweetest thing about that was that my Stella 12 years before had done the exact same thing. She was one of a litter of 12 yellow labs and when I went to, to meet them to pick my puppy, she did the same thing she crawled up on my lap and, and claimed me as her own. So I just felt like it was it was sort of meant to be.

PHIL   16:41 
So Greta picked you and you take her home. And you're prepared because you've done research, so good on you. Were you as ready as you thought you were?

JODI  16:54 
I don't know that you can ever be ready for Greta. She is just — she's the pistol. I was glad that I did the research because the first thing that we started working with her on was the "watch me" command. We just used a treat and brought it to our eyes so that she would look at us. So right off the bat we were training her to look to us for cues. And that was the best advice that I got. Even now. Sometimes she does this terrible two thing where she she knows that I can't instruct her if she's not looking at me. And so she will go to the back of the backyard, turn her back to me and and just be out there for a while when I'm trying to tell her to come in. Because she knows that she can't receive a command if she's not looking at me. She's very smart that way.

PHIL   17:47 
And you said terrible twos. How long have you had Greta?

JODI  17:50 
She will be three in at the end of May. So, yeah, we're we're in that — I don't know if that's a real thing with dogs. I just, it's odd that she happens to be two and she's exhibiting that behavior a lot right now.

PHIL   18:04 
Two or three that's kind of the adolescent age for dogs that they're mostly filled out full grown but they still have a lot of that puppy energy and occasional stubbornness.

JODI  18:17 
Occasional, yeah. Only once an hour I think with with Greta but, yeah...

PHIL   18:23 
Get that down to just a couple times a day and you're good to go.

JODI  18:26 
Yeah, we'll be good. We'll be great. That's that's something for next year I'm sure something something in her threes that we will get a little bit more attentive to actual commands but...

PHIL   18:35 
Baby steps or puppy steps.

JODI  18:37 
Baby steps! Puppy steps! Exactly. But she is in no way a disagreeable dog. She is wonderful. She's beautiful. We get a lot of comments about her. When we first got her, she was mostly white. She has a very large spot over her left eye that is dark with just a bit of brown. And you could see her spots on her skin. But she was, you know, her hair was white. It was just a couple of weeks after we got her that we went on vacation for the first time. So this was the first time that we had left her at the vet. They adored her. Like, they all were within those first two weeks, we already had a great relationship with the staff at our vet. And they're, "Like, no, this is fine. You know, tell us what you're working on with her." We taught them, you know, this is how we do the "watch me" with her. So we felt pretty comfortable leaving her for about a week. And when we came back from that vacation, she had been visited by the spot fairie. This is something that happens with Llewellins. They just kind of suddenly develop the spots that they're going to get. And the staff at our vet's office was just in awe. They're like, "We watched this happen day by day!" We left a white puppy, and we came back to a Dalmatian. I mean, it was it was pretty, pretty intense. But she has a lot of dark coloring. There are some of Llewellins that have lighter spots, brown spots, much fewer. But she's she's got a lot of dark coloring and she just, she just bloomed while we were gone. She's just a gorgeous dog.

PHIL   20:14 
I've seen pictures. I have not gotten to meet Greta yet, and we'll want some pictures and, yeah, send us something we can use for the thumbnail for the description for this episode and in social media.

JODI  20:25 
Oh, sure! Yeah, her head shot. Of course!

PHIL   20:28 
Greta has a Facebook page.

JODI  20:30 
She does. She is Greta Go Go on Facebook.

PHIL   20:34 
We'll link to that in the description. So listeners you can see all the pictures and get all the updates of Greta. Two, three years, that's enough time for you to really see how a deaf dog interacts with the world in general, but specifically with other dogs, not just Jasmine but strange dogs. Any surprises and owning a deaf dog even though you did your research?

JODI  20:59 
Yes. One of the things that I saw again and again was that deaf dogs, more often than not, they call them Velcro dogs. They are very clingy to their humans because they rely on us to communicate what's going on. Greta does not seem to have that problem at all. She was an extremely confident, very independent puppy and remains so now. Although, she is much more cautious around big dogs now. Like I said earlier, she has a deep hatred of all things small and furry. So if it's something that she can identify, that's, that's smaller than she is she's just gonna bark until it approaches and then she's gonna look at it warily and then, "Okay, maybe we can be friends." Our neighbors across the street just got a new Corgi puppy. And she's very suspicious of him until he gets up to you know, nose length, and then she's like, "Oh, you. Okay, you're my buddy." But large dogs do tend to intimidate her a bit. The last time we left her at the vet for a couple of days — our vet's really great about posting pictures of playtime. So you can go to their Facebook page, and see all the pictures of your dog playing with other dogs. And I just noticed that she was kind of hiding in tunnels and sort of warily looking out. And I didn't make the connection but that was the first time that she had been in playtime with dogs who are bigger than she was. So she is she's a little bit hesitant, and I wouldn't have guessed that from her very confident beginnings. But once she warms up once that dog approaches her, she doesn't have any protection, no, no barking or growling anything like that. It's just, "I'm gonna hang back and see what you're like."

PHIL   22:41 
I'm gonna play armchair psychologist, armchair dog psychologist, armchair dog behaviorist...

JODI  22:47 
Absolutely.

PHIL   22:48 
That there's some trepidation with a big dog because she really has to get close to get to know them. That she really can't hear when the dog is in her blind spot.

JODI  23:00 
Yeah.

PHIL   23:01 
And you can be wary of a little dog, but then figure them out. But with a big dog, it's going to take longer to assess friend or foe. And be a little more cautious.

JODI  23:15 
I think that has something to do with it. Definitely. Yeah. Little things that you don't think about when you have a deaf dog that you take for granted when you have hearing dogs, I guess I should say. Things like when dogs are playing, they let each other know that they're playing to roughly by yelping or barking. And she can't hear that. So one of the issues that we had, when she was playing with us when she was a small puppy was that she would bite really hard. And she would play really roughly. But she couldn't hear the cues that either we or Jasmine would give her, "Hey, that's a little bit too much." So it's just it's little things like that, that we didn't anticipate. And that was not something that I found in my research. But yeah, we learned to adjust. We learned this is the only way that I kind of diverge from the very extremely positive behavior reinforcement is that I needed to give her a sign for "no" that "no bite" that that was too much. And so I do use the sign for "no" with her or "stop." Sometimes we give her the "stop" sign.

PHIL   24:20 
We've had Jason and Sandra Sindeldecker on this show, who are service dog trainers with Missouri Patriot Paws. And by the time this interview that we're doing now airs, we should have some more video up. We already have some video up of them working with dogs. To the outside observer he would sometimes appear — Jason — to be very stern, very rough with the dog the way he will pull the leash. The way he will get in their face with his hand and be very stern with the "no." But he explains and I have the audio I will make sure I include this in the video edit, where he explains, "I give this dog nothing but love when I first meet it. When the handler brings it to see me again. I give it nothing but love." And, and you can see it when these dogs haven't been with him for a while they see Jason, they love Jason. It's they showered him with kisses and their butt wiggles and tail. So he can be firm. And when he is firm with him, when he pulls — and they have the specific collar that allows you to pull without putting their their throat or anything or their neck at risk. They don't tuck their tail. They don't cower. They give him their undivided attention.

JODI  25:50 
Yes.

PHIL   25:51 
And so I agree with positive reinforcement. But sometimes you have to be stern. You have to be firm, and you have to be negative to get the message across. But, you only get to do that if you've already established the loving relationship with the dog.

JODI  26:11 
Yes. Yes, those blood scratches are very, very important to Greta. It's her favorite thing. And I think that giving those cues to a deaf dog is even more important because they rely on your body language to let them know, "This is okay or this is not." We definitely use the stern facial expressions when we're trying to get her to listen to us. We don't have a special leash but we use just like three taps or three small tugs on the leash to get her to know, "Oh, I need to look them up, like we're changing direction or we're doing something different." So the three kind of small tugs on the leash is what we use are three taps on her shoulder if she's not leashed at the time. One of the scariest moments that I had with Greta was the first walk that I took her on. I read a lot about how it might be necessary, it could be helpful to double leash a deaf dog so that if something happens to you, the dog is still attached to you. So I use both a hand leash and a hands free leash for that first walk. And I was petrified. Because I just didn't know how she would respond.

PHIL   27:15 
It's like being tethered to a surfboard.

JODI  27:17 
It really is. It really is. And she, you know, of course was exploring. And this is the most amazing thing. And you know, we were we were definitely not — I was being walked. I was not, I was not walking the dog. I was being walked. But the scary moment came when we were, we had turned a corner and we were on a busy street, on a sidewalk on a busy street. And she took off, tried to pull me off of the sidewalk into the cars. She was up on her back leg. She was going to fight the cars. And so that was one of those moments where you tug, you make eye contact. "No!" And yeah, that was a very scary time. Because if she had just been — if she hadn't been tethered with the hands free, and she had pulled that hard, the leash could have come out of my hand and she would have been gone. She would have been in the traffic. So we don't go on that many walks onto the streets. But we do use that reinforcement. "No, look at me. Look at me. Easy."  We use the sign for "easy" and and she's gotten a lot better.

PHIL   28:22 
Establishing that relationship with the dog is hard work. When they give you puppy dog eyes when you say, "No." and you feel bad about saying, "No." But it's your responsibility as a dog owner to establish, "When I say something, this way when I give you this look when I give you this tap. This is really important."

JODI  28:42 
Yes. Pay attention. This this is important. Exactly. Greta does emotional manipulation that she uses on the regular with us is her ears. She just has the biggest puffy just floofiest ears. And that's her puppy dog eyes, you know, in in conjunction with the sweet face. She just gives us — we call it the full floof and if you get the full floof, like, she's just really trying to get her way right now and, "You are precious and I I know you are beautiful, beautiful girl." We can tell her that. But, "You're still not doing that thing."

PHIL   29:16 
You are not in charge.

JODI  29:18 
Nope. I'm in charge.

PHIL   29:18 
Has Greta met any other deaf dogs?

JODI  29:22 
No, actually she has not. The same breeder had a litter with two deaf males in it just recently. And I thought it would be good for her to kind of meet them. But they were re-homed or they were homed, I guess I should say, more quickly than I could get her down to visit them. So...

PHIL   29:40 
I'd be curious what that interaction might be like. So if that happens, let me know. We'll get you back on the show.

JODI  29:47 
I'll update. Absolutely. Yeah.

PHIL   29:48 
Our audience I know would love an update. You've given us some good resources for people who want to know more about adopting deaf dogs with A Deaf Dog Joins the Family and with Deaf Dogs Rock, and certainly with Greta Go Go Facebook page, again, those will be linked in the description. Anything else you think our listeners should know about having a deaf dog in general or specifically your experience with Greta?

JODI  30:14 
I think if I was going to give advice to someone who is considering getting a deaf dog, there are those resources available. There are lots of helpful videos on YouTube that show people working with their deaf dogs and the signs that they use. Watch at least a couple of those before you bring your deaf dog home. Because you can practice those and your family can practice those. And that way you're all hitting the ground running and on the same page when you first bring that dog into your home. I thought that was very helpful.

PHIL   30:44 
Two important points there. One, the consistency when you say hitting the ground running that everybody's using the same signs so that, yeah, you're not using the sign for "sit" that someone else is using for "fetch."

JODI  30:56 
Mm hmm. Yeah. And I...

PHIL   30:57 
But also don't reinvent the wheel. Because somebody has already figured out a language for the dog. So you don't have to be months into your training when you realize, "Boy, I chose really poorly with this hand signal because it's so much like this other gesture."

JODI  31:13 
Yes, that means something totally different to another person. That's why we chose to stick with ASL signs as much as possible because they are so universal. And if she happens to be somewhere else, or if we do end up hanging out with owners who have a deaf dog themselves, we can all be using the same signs and the dogs will respond to any of us.

PHIL   31:34 
You mentioned ASL. Has she met a deaf human?

JODI  31:38 
No, she has not. Interestingly enough, I have a friend who is a sign language interpreter. And I sort of have her at the ready in case I need something but at this point I think we pretty much have all the signs down that we're going to be using with her. But she has not actually met a deaf human or or been communicated to by a deaf human.

PHIL   32:00 
Write this down, Jodi. Here's your assignment.

JODI  32:02 
Okay.

PHIL   32:02 
You need to find a deaf dog and you need to have date with a deaf person, hearing impaired person, because I'm just curious how Greta would react to someone who has that whole vocabulary of ASL.

JODI  32:21 
And I really think that gretta would respond well. Like I think that you know, she's already got the "watch me." She looks to humans and watches what they do. I think that would be a really, really interesting.

PHIL   32:32 
And dogs are so intuitive that I I just feel like there would be a connection there that she would pick up.

JODI  32:38 
Mm hmm.

PHIL   32:38 
"This person and I share something special."

JODI  32:41 
Yes. Yes. And that would be so great for her.

PHIL   32:44 
Well, thank you so much, Jodi. Get back to us when you have your assignment done.

JODI  32:49 
Yes. When I finish my homework.

PHIL   32:51 
Because I am sure you have nothing else to do on your list of priorities. Bump this all up to the top. And and when everyone gets their COVID-19 vaccines, let's let's get together and shoot some video of Greta that we can post and maybe she can meet Peaches. I don't know how well that would go because Peaches is very vocally bossy.

JODI  33:14 
Mm hmm. Yeah. Greta would probably let her be. I think that she would she would let her take the lead in that because she's Peaches is at least as big as Greta, if not a little bit bigger. And so I think she would have that, that respect that kind of "Oh, okay."

PHIL   33:29 
And go ahead and bark all you want Peaches. It doesn't bother me at all.

JODI  33:31 
Yeah. Because I can't hear you anyway. Mm hmm. Yeah, we do that a lot. We catch ourselves like talking to Greta. In addition to doing the signs, we're talking while we're doing it. And we wonder why we do that because she can't hear it.

PHIL   33:44 
I think that you are vocal. That is inextricably linked to your energy. And even if she can't hear the words coming out of your mouth, she can read your energy that would be different if you weren't talking.

JODI  33:58 
Yes. Agreed. All of the body language that goes along with that and, and just the intention behind it. It's just a really hard habit to break when you're used to having hearing animals. I'm constantly talking to Jasmine, so, yeah, Greta gets that same mouth movement. And then like you're saying the the energy and the intention behind it, like, yeah, she's, uh, she's pretty good at interpreting us.

PHIL   34:22 
Do you think she reads lips?

JODI  34:24 
Umm, perhaps. It depends. I think she is more reading like our eyebrows than she is paying attention to our our mouth. But, yeah, she looks more intently when when we're talking. Even when my husband and I are just talking to each other. She's paying attention to what we're saying. We always joke and say, "Oh, she knows we're talking about her." But yeah, I think I think it's more a facial expression overall rather than just the mouth but...

PHIL   34:47 
We've had dog behaviorist Ellen Furlong on the show — and we hope to have Dr. Furlong on again soon — so I'll ask her about that because I believe there are studies that show the way dogs read our facial expressions and in Dr. Furlong's — and I'll link to this interview in the description — she talked about a study that shows the dog shaming where they show guilt is not based on what the dog has done. It's based strictly on the owner's behavior.

JODI  35:20 
Yeah.

PHIL   35:20 
So if the owner thinks they've done something wrong, even before the owner says anything, the dog is gonna to look guilty.

JODI  35:27 
Yes.

PHIL   35:27 
Regardless of what they've done, because they read us so well. And then the study I want to ask Dr. Furlong about is one that showed dogs can tell when our eyes are closed. So for instance, if you put a treat down and tell them to wait, and you look at them, and they've been trained to wait, they will wait. But then most dogs, if you close your eyes, they will take the treat. It's just like you've left the room.

JODI  35:53 
That's fascinating. Yeah.

PHIL   35:54 
So you talking about Greta reading your eyebrows. I'm sure that's a huge communication channel for her is eyes and eyebrows, and just the expressions around the eyes, whether you're squinting or frowning. You can do so much with the eyes.

JODI  36:11 
Yeah, I agree. And I think that's probably due to, you know, that being one of the very first things that we trained her on was was the "look at my eyes," you know, here's a treat by my eyebrows. "Oh, you're looking at me?" And then you use — I guess it's a form of kind of physical clicker training in that we would flash our fingers at her. So we would hold a treat between our thumb and forefinger and then flash the rest of our fingers at her to let her know, "Yes, that's the thing!" and then you get the treat. So, yeah, I do think that her paying attention to that upper half of our face definitely has something to do with that basis that we started off with.

PHIL   36:48 
This has been so fascinating. I look forward to follow up on Greta and listeners who if you have any questions about Greta or just deaf dogs in general, contact Greta through her Facebook page or contact us at RosieFund.org using the contact form. And I will add those to our list of questions for our next interview with Jodi Vogler.

JODI  37:14 
Wonderful.

PHIL   37:15 
Jodi, thank you so much for being on the show today.

JODI  37:18 
Thank you, Phil. It's been great.

PHIL   37:28 
I'm Phil Hatterman and you've been listening to Dog Words presented by Rosie Fund. Thank you to Jodi Vogler for joining us today. The Greta Go Go Facebook page is linked in the description along with links to DeafDogsRock.com the Amazon Smile page for A Deaf Dog Joins the Family and our interview with dog behaviorist Dr. Ellen Furlong.

Remember, you can commission recent Dog Words cast Ashley Schanz through her website or Facebook page to sketch a beautiful memento of your pet with the proceeds benefiting charities please use the keyword Rosie r-o-s-i-e when you contact Ashley if you want Rosie Fund to be the beneficiary charity.

Next time on Dog Words Leib Dodell shares exciting news about Bar K Dog Bar.

A big thank you to alternative string duo The Wires featuring cellist Sascha Groshang and violinist Laurel Morgan Parks for playing the wonderful music you've heard on today's and previous episodes of Dog Words. Learn more about The Wires at TheWires.info and download their music on iTunes. Check out FiddleLife.com and learn to play fiddle and cello fiddle online from Laurel and Sasha even if you've never played before.

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