This past December 11th, we were the recipients of a litter of orphan puppies from our rescue organization,
AARCS. This is where they came from in the puppies' words;
"Our journey to AARCS was sad. We were seized at the time of a police raid, found under a tarpaulin and full of lice. Sadly they could not find our Mom. We sure hope Mom is doing OK, and that someone else found her and she is safe like we are. Originally we were taken to Lakeland Humane Society where they cared for us and then made the call to AARCS to see if they had a foster home that could take us on."
They were approximately 4 weeks old when they arrived after a very long drive and a really tough start to their little lives. We had to keep them penned so the lice wouldn't spread to our dogs. We bottle fed them for the first week to help them catch up on some developmental nutrients.
See that white puppy in the middle there? She was extremely different from the rest of the litter. I have never seen a dog sleep as hard as she did. She didn't wake when the rest of the litter did as we opened the pocket door to our laundry room. She didn't look at us when she was awake. It was like we didn't really exist to her.
We had to bath the litter a fair bit when they first arrived to try to cope with the lice since the puppies were too young to have the medication that would kill the lice. This little girl growled up a storm every time we dried her after her bath and was simply a miserable little puppy. All I could think was how very odd.
Our universal signal to puppies that are running around to come is to shake a little kibble in the yogurt container we use to measure out their food. This little girl rarely came and we just didn't understand why she always wandered around in the garage and away in the yard. All the other puppies bounced around our feet and we talked to them and petted them, played with them. Perfectly normal puppy stuff, except for her. I thought several times that she was so un teachable that I really didn't know how we would accomplish her basic training so she would be adoptable. What was is about her that made her scream and squeal when we came up behind her and scooped her up when it was time to kennel her? She was quite frustrating and I had never seen a dog with so much attitude and seeming dislike for people.
We got pictures of all the puppies taken and uploaded to the AARCS website and waited for the adoption process to begin. We got an application for this difficult girl and I have to admit, I didn't want the applicant to come because I had a feeling it would be a bad fit and I didn't want to waste anyone's time. I decided to go ahead with the visit anyway and we brought many un-house trained puppies up. This white girl got herself into a fix by climbing into the dishwasher and my daughter went over and grabbed her around her middle to lift her out after telling her 'No!' This puppy screamed and we felt exasperated with her because if we weren't able to handle her, how would we adopt her to anyone?!!!
Then, my daughter asked, 'What if she can't hear us coming up behind her?' and I felt like fireworks went off in front of my eyes!!! It explained every single issue we were experiencing with her. I immediately did a few simple tests (the same ones the vet did, by the way, when we took her to him the following Monday) and came to the conclusion that she was deaf. Not just a little deaf either, but absolutely stone deaf. The first thing we worked on was desensitizing her to unexpected touches. By the time the vet saw her 2 days later, she didn't scream anymore and he confirmed that she is congenitally deaf. We started training her with sign language and it was remarkable to see her suddenly pay attention to us - we started to exist for her. Without the potential adoptive visit, I don't know when we would have figured it out that she is deaf.
She learned 'sit' and 'come' that very first night we worked with her. She is a very smart little puppy and with a couple of days was caught up to the level of training of the rest of the litter. She learned to focus on our hands and our faces. And so...
we adopted her. She's moved in. She made a school visit last week and did an amazing job. We would like to train her so she can do more of this kind of advocating for rescue dogs. Without being rescued, she would not have survived much beyond last December since she wouldn't have been able to hear a predator or vehicles or anything that would endanger her. She is a great little cuddle buddy and travels like a dream. She already loves going in the car and is enjoying walks since she isn't afraid of traffic noise like most other dogs just learning to walk on leash. She will never learn to bark from our shelites and she is a remarkable, happy puppy.
Our first official day of being her owners was tough. She sleeps really hard, and she goes off and hides so she can sleep without being startled. My kids went to school that first day of owning her and 10 minutes passed when I realized I didn't know where she was. I couldn't call her! I called my daughter's school to find out where she was the last time my daughter had seen the puppy. She must be in the house. MUST!!! I walked to the bus stop to make sure and there were no puppy prints in the fresh snow. I'd looked everywhere in the house and under the beds 3 times and couldn't see her. It was a harrowing experience and it took me nearly 2 hours to find her under the dust ruffle on my daughter's bed. How did I miss her?!!! And so started my first day with a deaf dog.
I keep calling her 'she' because we haven't settled on a name for her. We've considered Portia, Petra, Boo, Aurora and a whole host of other names and right now we seem to be calling her Mouse a lot. I have no idea what we will end up deciding on, and really, the name is so we know who we are talking about! She can't be trained to come to her name. She comes when we flick a light off and on or, if she can see us, 2 pats on the leg.
She is almost house trained with no accidents in the house today and none at night since we started crating her. This little white girl of ours is the reason I've gotten a bit behind in my crafting commitments and who can blame me really? She is soft as a cloud, and this is the first litter of rescued puppies we've had that I haven't been allergic to.
What was I thinking that this little angel was a toughie and quite un adoptable?!! God blesses us in so many ways and He is speaking to us through His creation yet again.
And I hope I will get back to my regular programming now as well...
