Whether you’re a new dog parent or have had many dogs throughout your life, one thing is for sure: puppy training is extremely important to the well-being of the entire family. No one wants to be around a dog that has no manners. If every time your friends and family come to your house and Fido jumps on them, you will soon have fewer visitors. Or, if you are outside and you tell your dog to “come” and he leaves. Not good. So can you imagine caring for a puppy that is untrained and deaf? Well, it is possible to teach him everything he needs to know to have a happy, healthy and safe life. How can you ask? Simple, sign language.

Yes, dog parents can learn some basic words of sign language and in turn teach their dog. You can teach your puppy to understand manual commands like: sit, turn around, come, stop, stay… you get the picture. As human beings, we can read someone’s body language and we can tell if he is sad, happy or any number of emotions. Well, dogs are no different. They can also read your body language and hand gestures for clues. You’d be surprised how quickly they can learn to understand these signals.

The only real problem lies with the dog’s father. If he decides to train your puppy sign language, you must be consistent. You can’t train your dog one day and stop. And then resume a week later. It doesn’t work that way. You should provide short daily sessions where you teach your dog the basic sign language commands that he wants him to learn. If you stick to the daily teaching sessions, he will learn. If they are not consistent, his dog will become confused and frustrated. Remember, your dog wants to please you, so make it easy for him to do so.

Now some positive news. Deaf dogs actually learn faster than hearing dogs for one simple reason. They are not distracted by noise, so they can concentrate on training. Puppies are easily distracted because they want to play. A dog that can hear will focus his attention on the noises he hears, which is basically everything. To get a deaf dog’s attention, spray it with a bottle of water. That’s the signal that it’s time to learn.

So there’s no need to get discouraged if your dog can hear or is deaf, he can still be trained to be a productive member of the family.