When Jo Le Page, 41, from Guernsey adopted a beautiful Spanish Water puppy named Rafa she didn't realize he was deaf. But after discovering his disability, the woman didn't give up on him. On the contrary, Jo is determined to teach him sign language and even to train him as a therapy dog.
It came as a complete surprise to Jo that Rafa is deaf. When Jo, who is a mom-of-two and a preschool worker, was considering Rafa for adoption, he didn't give away his disability. The pup copied the behavior of his siblings, following them everywhere and turning his head when other puppies heard noises. But several days after having Rafa, Jo realized that her pup was stone deaf. He would neither respond to her voice nor wake up when somebody came in. Even thunderstorm wasn't frightening the puppy.
Of course, Jo was initially upset. She thought Rafa would be very hard to handle, however, her fears calmed when she saw that Rafa was watching her and trotted next to her during their walks.
It took Jo 8 weeks to teach Rafa several basic commands such as 'sit,' 'spin,' and 'lie down.' Furthermore, after 7 months of training Rafa learnt nine different hand signs including 'watch me', 'spin', 'give paw', 'lie down', 'come', 'stay' and 'safe.'
"The training is all done with hand signals. Thumbs up are used for praise. You can't use hands in a negative way, so showing something to be unacceptable is difficult. This is only the beginning of his journey and we just take it a day at a time," Jo says.
Now the doggie is trained as a therapy dog to help the disabled. If he completes his training, he'll be the first deaf therapy dog.
By telling Rafa's story Jo hopes that more people will consider adopting disabled pets.
Source: mirror.co.uk
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