Expert: Angela Donald - 2/2/2012

Question
I have a 9 week old female boxer puppy. She is pure white,the only mark of color that she has on here is beside her eye and it is brown and black in color. She is the puppy of my female boxer,who is fawn in color and so is her father. I think she may be deaf,I have noticed that she has not learned her name yet,when calling her,clapping your hands or snapping your fingers she seems not to notice at all. I read somewhere that you could place her on cement and have someone walk behind her and snap your fingers next to each ear and if she doesn't respond then she may very well be deaf,I tried this and I did not get any response. Although she seems not to hear most things,it seems like sometimes she can hear, I don't know if she can just hear up close and not far away or if her hearing is going away completely, she  has a vet appointment next week and I will ask them about it and have them check her out,but until then I would love any kind of advice and expertise on this if you could possibly give me some. I have started her on her hand signals and I am looking into a Vibration collar,without the shock or static options on them. Thanks again for any help that you can provide.

Answer
Hi Elizabeth,
The puppy should have the Baer hearing test given by your vet to assertain the correct level of hearing the puppy has at this time.Some partially deaf pups can hear high pitch sounds.Many white boxers are bilaterially deaf, hearing in only one ear.You are doing wise to start the pup on hand signals at an early age,also the vibration collars work well to get their attention. Some breeders will also use a training clicker to tell if pups are hearing impaired by clicking the training Clicker behind the head and watching for any ear movement. The best test is the Baer hearing test given by your vet. Good luck with this beautiful puppy and thanks so much for your question.