Training with a deaf dog..

SO! I've had a bundle of fun arrive at the centre in the form of an 11 month old entirely deaf and untrained Staffordshire Bull Terrier..

He's completely oversexed and will mount anything that moves, he's a very strong boy and walkers can't even take him out without him making love to their knees for the entire walk...he also panics when you put the lead on and will try to chew his way out of it. The only commands he knows are sit and paw but he's like a whirlwind and getting his attention for long enough is a real nightmare! He is overly friendly and we haven't seen any aggression from him at all yet, tried mixing him with other dogs but again he just mounted them constantly and got himself into some big trouble. He is of course booked in for neuter next week but we know that isn't going to be an overnight success because the hormones take sooo long to leave the body!

Can anyone shed a little light on how to train him before I go out of my mind?! I'm researching everything that I can but this dog is a mess poor thing!

Poor fella! I would say he isn't any more oversexed than any other dog, he's just never been trained not to hump everything in sight! Neutering may help (and I think it's a must for any deaf dog anyway!), but as you say, it's not going to change things overnight.

I don't think you can train him with other dogs around for the time being & play with them will probably have to be curtailed until he's a bit calmer.

Is he ok with a collar? Would a harness be better, he might not object to the lead so much. I wonder if a vibrating collar might help him?

I was thinking the same thing caryll, the vibrating collar would help distract him from humping and also teach him to watch.

He probably didn't get a lot of exercise with his old owners im going to assume, so maybe after a lot of regular exercise he will calm down enough to learn. Maybe try to run him ragged for a week then see how his attention span is?

The link below may help with the deafness:

http://staffy-bull-terrier.co.uk/livingwithadeafstafford.html

Think you might be right... he's just so full on I've never met a dog THAT interested in mounting you for the whole duration of your meeting!! Have asked my boss to order a vibrating collar, so hopefully that will be here soon. He's currently walking on a harness as the straight lead and collar was a no go.. but doesn't seem to have made much difference unfortunately.

As far as I'm aware he was taken from a squat house, but know nothing other than that about his background.

It's actually really difficult to exercise him as he's just so people oriented, no matter how much you ignore or walk away from him he won't go and play.. just humps you We hoped bringing another dog in for him to play with and burn his energy might help but nope! Also doesn't help that my colleagues sing Barry White songs every time he makes his move Feel so bad for the poor little mite!

Oooh thanks Kathy, will have a read!

.....naturally you must now call him Barry lol

Good luck Rach, at least he is in good hands now and no doubt you can turn him around Xx

I'm sure now that he is with you and getting exercise and training he needs he will do great. Good luck with the training

Hmmm.....dont suppose you've tried a spray bottle for the humping? But it sounds like its THAT bad that it probably wouldn't work. We had a pitbull come into the hospital that was the same, humped every moving thing in sight - which was a shame as he was a lovely dog otherwise but people became very reluctant to handle him, as you can imagine.

Otherwise, maybe try exercise him with someone on a bike or roller blades or something similar? Might help to keep him moving enough to tire him out a bit.

Edit: Just reread and saw he's only 11 months old so obviously be careful with my above advice about exercising as he might be a little too young.