Innovative Training
Due to his deafness, training Karl involved quite a lot of challenges. Before she adopted Karl, Joanne already had 3 Boxers that she had trained as therapy dogs, however, she had never trained a deaf dog before. As they cannot hear the commands given to them, deaf dogs need a different kind of training involving a lot of eye contact, which as you can imagine, can be quite tricky with an excitable puppy. So, Joanne had to be creative and think of an innovative way to train Karl as a Therapy Dog.
Innovative Training
Overcoming Obstacles
With the help of her behaviorist friend, Joanne successfully taught Karl to follow signing commands, and he was trained to communicate with American Sign Language. He learned quickly, responding to the commands that his trainers signed to him. Joanne said “Karl learned 10 signs, and then he learned 10 more, and now he’s up over 100 signs”, demonstrating just how smart he is and amazing them all. Once Karl understood the commands from his trainers’, he began to excel.
Overcoming Obstacles
