Dear Befuddled: You offer several clues about his change in behavior in your question. The dog belongs to your daughter and he is obviously very attached to her as his “pack” leader. In addition, he depends on her to be a main source of communication through sign language. I’d be interested to know if anyone else in your family knows the sign language that your daughter has taught him. The correlation between her longer working hours, his day care attendance and his misbehavior is striking.

Deaf dogs become very comfortable in their surroundings and thrive on an established routine. Any dog will begin to show behavior changes if his routine is disrupted. If the change is drastic and stressful enough, the dog may begin to “act up” in response to his loss of routine or usual attention. Your dog got a double whammy with less time with your daughter and then being thrust into a very different and strange place called day care. While he may enjoy playtime with other dogs (or he may not), he may also feel anxiety at loosing his pack leader who “speaks” his language. Dogs rely more on body language than verbal language to communicate with each other and with people. Sign language is a form of body language.

Back at home his behavior is changing. Since he has no vocabulary for “Hey, what the heck is going on here! I’m not happy with this stressful change in routine.” One of his methods of communicating requires you to go get a pooper scooper. I think his message is clear!

The other “nipping” behavior may be his way of expressing his fear of not being able to keep track of his possessions, namely your daughter. Because he is feeling a loss of routine and pack leader, he wants to “protect” what he feels he has some control over at his home. He is becoming more territorial.

Plus, if you look into the breed history of the Bulldog, you find that they were originally bred for bull baiting and dog fighting in England. However, that fighting trait has been bred out of them over the centuries and what remains is a very courageous, resolute dog with a dignified demeanor. These proud dogs take their role as protector very seriously.

Try to look at it from his point of view. He’s just doing what comes naturally. It might help to investigate further how he spends his day at the day care facility and if someone there is able to learn his sign language. Do a little detective work and see if you can identify a pattern with him as to when he acts up. Is it shortly after he returns from day care or after spending many hours home alone or maybe when your daughter comes home from work? Finding out what triggers his “acting up” behavior might lead you to clues as how to avoid those triggers in the first place. In addition, as a rescue dog, you don’t know what his life was like prior to his adoption. There may be a history of something that is a trigger of anxiety for him that no one is aware of.             

I recommend reading The Latchkey Dog – How the Way You Live Shapes the Behavior of the Dog You Love by Jodi Anderson, published by HarperCollins in 2000. In the book, Anderson takes great strides to show how we use dogs in ways that they are unaccustomed to handling such as being surrogate children and husband/boyfriend replacements. But the bulk of the book demonstrates just how sensitive dogs are to our behavior. How we act around them creates our pets’ behavior. Another resource is the Deaf Dog Education Action Fund (DDEAF) website I found at www.deafdogs.org. There is an excellent section on deaf dog myths that tends to point that his deafness isn’t the cause of his change in behavior. In the meantime, have each family member, especially your daughter, spend some extra quality time with him and you will see an immediate improvement.

 

Lisa Peterson, a breeder and exhibitor of Norwegian Elkhounds, is a Delegate to the American Kennel Club and the owner of Peterson Pet Sitting. Ask Lisa questions at elvemel@aol.com or P.O. Box 197, Newtown, CT 06470.