I think my little Peppy is Deaf (Great Pry dwarf)

[heartofwisdom]

One of our Great Pyrenees puppies is so small we think he is a dwarf. The dwarf stats say most are hard of hearing or deaf (out of 18 tested only 2 could hear normal).  I'm almost positive Peppy is deaf. He doesn't hear anything. Its so sad.



We have two back doors about 20 ft apart and the pups keep coming to the wrong door. Little Peppy cries and howls to come in while I'm standing a few feet away calling him. His sister comes right away. Poor Peppy doesn't come until he sees me.

We have done everything, clap, whistle to test him. His sister looks right at us but Peppy hasn't a clue.

I now use a flash light at night to get his attention. Pry's have a tendency to roam so I'm worried about him not hearing. We have an appt with the vet next week. I'm taking aall the medical info on dwarfs. Maybe a dog whistle will work.

On a lighter note, I Peppy's coat is was looking ragged compared to his sisters coat. I thought maybe it was going to be a problem too -- but today I realized his coat is usually wet from being mawed by his big sister Precious. A good brushing brought it back to normal.

Thanks for listening.
Precious and Peppy's Mom.

PS. I can't figure out how to add an avatar--can't find the space in  profile??

[CalistogaPyr]

If you go to www.pawstoadop t.com there is a good section about working with Deaf dogs.  The girl who keeps up the site, Mariah Mountainous, has been written up in several magazines and newpapers and has become somewhat of an authority on training deaf dogs.
can you post more pictures of Peppy?  I'm curious to see his development compared to his sister!  Sometimes I wish Bo was a dwarf (only becuase she would be so much more managable if she didn't weigh as much as I do)!
Jennifer

[heartofwisdom]

Thanks for the link. Here are more photos. Its helpful to see him next to his litter mate.

[bigdogs@5501]

ok this has become an intriguing topic for me- I wonder if there is any test that you guys can do for the dwarfism? I have the litter of pyr pups at my house right now and there is clearly a huge difference between the largest and smallest puppy. However the smaller puppies are growing and gaining weight every day. I also have the mom and dad to the pups and they are both of normal size so I am thinking that none of these little babies will be dwarfs.
One other good thing is that the mom is about 5 years old and the dad appears to be about 10 years old and neither have shown to have any problems with thier hips.

Please keep us updated.

[maxsmom]

Heart of Wisdom,
Our 2 litters of puppies had huge differences in size among them.  As they grew, the differences gradually disappeared for the most part.  You will always have large and small puppies, but not huge differences, like you see at first.  Interestingly, one of the smaller puppies from the first litter, turned out to be exactly what I was hoping for from the breedings.  He had his mother's ridiculously heavy, long coat, his father's extremely long wavy hair on his ears, his fathers height and his mother's build.  He had to be the most beautiful dog I had ever seen, when I saw him again at the age of 6. 
Kathy