Jake's Hardness of Hearing

Backfill: May 7
OK, it's clearer now that Jake *is* hearing more of what I'm saying than I had thought. I don't know why, in a quiet room, when I say his name directly behind his head in a variety of tones and loudnesses, I get no response. But on the agility field, when I say it loudly and in a low voice (not the usual high-pitched excited voice I use in agility, not necessarily intentionally), he often responds perfectly.

Karey pointed out the first day of camp when she saw Jake run that he seemed to be responding to my voice commands.

Rachel had told me before camp about a vibrating collar that she used with her agility dog, Spinner, when he showed signs of losing his hearing. She took it to camp to loan to me to try it out, but the battery was dead. Today I got new batteries for the transmitter and collar and started playing with it. Not clear what Jake thinks about it--he had no reaction to it at all as I started loading it up like you'd load up a clicker. He was too excited about the junk food to really pay much attention to a little vibrating whoosie thingie.

I'm going to try using it like I'd use a clicker normally, to mark desired behaviors. Especially & particularly, I want to mark him looking at me while doing agility obstacles. We'll see how persistent I am with this...