My shower companion

Does she hear?

So with a deaf dog, the question that is always out there is "does she hear anything at all?" Because she is from a rescue organization, Abbie has never been officially tested for deafness. But there are several informal tests, such as not responding to doors opening and closing, voices, other dogs' warning growls, food falling on the floor, and other little things that hearing dogs react to. And in many ways, deaf dogs are much easier; no worries about thunderstorms or fireworks, for instance.

We've tried different things around the house. Does she hear or feel stomping? What about clapping? The majority of our experiments haven't resulted in anything definite. Was that a sound she reacted to, or just me?

But we've had a couple of experiences in the past few months that lead us to believe that she is not completely deaf (just mostly deaf). On a walk one afternoon, I swear she heard the dog barking inside a house. We walked by and I heard the barking, but did not see any obvious movement, or anything else that might have sparked her attention. But at a particular "woof," she whipped her head around to see what was there.  Then last week, there was a particular sound on TV (I wish I could remember what we were watching) that definitely got to her...she was so startled that she actually leaped off the couch woofing at whatever she had just heard; she was also very suspicious about getting back on the couch. Finally, last night, Remy barked randomly, and Abbie zeroed in on her.

We'll probably never know the full extent of her (non-)hearing, but it is fun to see what she can hear and what she can't.

Same Stick, Different Day

Abbie loves to play on our walks. She zooms around, pounces this leaf, bounds through that drift. I frequently carry a toy with me (or she does when she wears her saddlebags), but not always. Sometimes I will even pick up sticks that I see so that she'll have something to play with.

On Monday afternoon's walk, she found this BIG stick, and really wanted to bring it along. It must be a very good stick, because she wanted it again on Tuesday afternoon.

Or, maybe she just wants to eat it...more fiber in her diet?

Abbie's adventure that wasn't

A new year, maybe more blogging (but don't hold your breath...I promise nothing).

'Twas the Tuesday before Christmas. We were racing around the house starting our packing for our drive to Tennessee (of course, leaving first thing the next morning, we waited until the night before to begin). We had just picked up seat covers and floor mats for our new van, and were working in the garage trying to get them installed before anything else.

Because Abbie is best behaved when supervised, we don't like to leave her in the house if we're outside. It was also too early to drop her off at her puppy-sitter's. So, as per usual when we work outside, Abbie was hanging out in the back yard while we were in the garage. The part she was in consisted of about 5 square feet of shoveled patio plus the sidewalk leading to the gate. The rest of the yard was still buried under the 2+ feet of snow from the recent storms.

In order to preserve what little warmth the garage contained, we closed the big garage door, and continued our work. After about 5 minutes, Scott first heard skritching noises, but wasn't quite sure what he was hearing. A little bit later, I heard them too. We opened the garage door to admit a white puppy, someone just trying to find her people. The gate was still latched, and all of the snow was pristine around the fences, so the silly girl either jumped the fence, which I'm sure she could do, or climbed it. But rather than revel in her new-found freedom, she came looking for us, for which I am extremely surprised and grateful. I guess she's saying that she's found her home.