Today I'm gonna drop some helpful tips about working on an older deaf dog. This might sound funny, but talk to them.
Talk to the deaf dog? Yep! Dogs feed off of your energy! If you're nervous, they're nervous. If you're talking to them and loving on them, they'll definitely know it and be happy campers.
Go slow.
But nobody has time for that.
Lol that's what you think. I did this deaf dog, an out of control puppy, a very large doodle, a chonky old chow mix, and a cat today in 8.5 hours. Schedule your day accordingly if you know you have a special needs animal coming in.
Seriously, slow and steady wins the race with these guys. I was told I would need to muzzle her for nails and front legs. But I didn't need to. First off, she's old, and thereby arthritic. Everything hurts. I went nice and slow to avoid hurting her and to build trust with her. Secondly, she's deaf. She can't hear my movements so she's probably not expecting me to touch certain areas. Again, build that trust. It saves time because they're not getting overly stressed and you're not worrying about getting bit.
Give them breaks. When it seems like a certain thing is starting to be too much for them, take a little break. Move onto something else and then come back to it. If that's the last part of the groom, then just give them a break and pet them and love them and praise them. I promise, doing all of this really pays off.
Did a little prep work in the garden this week. That orange layer of leaf litter has been down for a couple of weeks but this week I added some of our compost and some lime (We noticed some moss & algae in the bed last year which can be an indication of the soil being too acid):
Seriously, you can make that rich black compost with just lawn clippings, leaf litter & the vegetable waste from your kitchen:
We visited my mom on Sunday. This is a photo of her she shed after a tree limb fell on it:
Mystery plant... possibly a hellebore but we aren't sure at this point:
In this post, I had a photo of a Fallout perk card with a Billy Strings reference stuck on a gas station ice box. Well, someone slapped another perk card with a Billy Strings reference on the same ice box:
If anyone wants to see my pets every day or often at least, you can follow them on Instagram. We are ProudPawprints over there and you can see cute pictures and videos of them like these:
Charley stands in snow in Grate Field in Central Park on December 2, 2007. Charley loved being out in the snow, especially as it was falling. Charley loved exploring Central Park and this particular field was near where he lived and he visited it often, frequently meeting other dogs and people each time. Central Park, Manhattan, NYC