Yay! I love this story. I have a deaf, white puppy who knows sign language. They all should be in the news. There is a real stigma against deaf dogs so any good press they can get helps them.

This article left out my favorite signal..
Stomp on the floor - wake up, I'm home!

That's amazing. Did you teach the dog yourself?

Her name is Kyrii-one-ear, she was born to a litter that I raised here. She was born dead and it took 35 minutes to resuscitate her and only when she miraculously took her first breath did I even notice that she only had one ear.

No one expected her to survive as she was premature, delivered by c-section not breathing and she had some pretty severe malformations. No inner ear, no sense of balance, jaws didn't mesh so she couldn't suck or swallow, she just crawled pathetically round in a circle.

I carried that little puppy around in my shirt for 10 weeks, feeding her with an eyedropper night and day. The day she first stood up on her own and walked (around 7 weeks old) I laughed and cried like I had given birth to her myself. To make a long story short, when you bond with a little dog like that you just evolve a way to communicate. I was surprised to see how much my own instinctive hand language is similar to the one that puppy is being taught.

Amen! With a little extra love and care deaf dogs can make wonderful pets. My sister rescued a white deaf boxer from a shelter and she is the loving dog I know.

eta: Oh she is beautiful. There aren't many people out there who would take the time to love and care for her like that. Kyrii-one-ear is so very luck to have you, and I'm sure you feel the same what about her.

Thanks so much. She is wonderful. You cannot spend time with her without laughing as she is such a comedian. She hops like a rabbit instead of running and when you tell her she is a good girl (by clapping) she does a happy dance.

Bonus Baby Shot.. I had to add it..

Yes, it's great that they taught the dog sign...And hopefully, the mom and dad won't be used to breed, and this pup is also fixed.

However...ANY dog can and should learn sign commands. How else do you communicate when you don't want to make noise?

Gypsy can hear so she learned visual commands pretty quickly...I just did them in conjunction with each other. It was actually unintentional at first, I kept pointing down when I was telling her to lie down and noticed that she was doing the action before I told her to but after I'd started the hand gesture.

She knows sit, lay down, beg and crawl.