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Big Dog-My deaf Dalmation
By Gayla Jones of One Stop Costume Shop
Big Dog is a 11 year old Dalmation/Australian Shepard mix. She looks just like a Dalmation except for the few spots she has are the Australian grey mottled color. She has the most beautiful blue eyes and pink nose. Unfortunately, she is deaf. We have been able to teach her sign language and she has gotten very good at looking the other way if you call lher with the sign for come. Just like a little child saying " I didn't hear you". Big Dog's favorite toys are sticks..big ones, small ones it doesn't matter..She just loves sticks. She is getting old now (77 in human years) and I am beginning to realize that I could lose her soon. She is limping quite badly on her right rear leg and her beautiful silver white coat is beginning to come out in clumps. She loves to sleep with me at night and she can no longer jump up onto the bed. She places her chin on the bed and stands there "asking" to come up on the bed, but now it is asking me to lift her back legs up on the bed. Our story For Christmas of 1998, my son wanted a "small" dog. So my daughter and I went out to all of the animal shelters and began the search. It was Christmas eve and getting later and later...we had to move fast to find that "small dog".
We came across a pup that was around six months old. She was a dalmation cross with the most beautiful ice blue eyes. She was excited to see people at her cage door, but was not as excited as her "roommate". I could see that this dog was not going to remain small (actually, she was already beyond small), so we went to the next set of cages and on to the next shelter...we were running out of time. Well, being this close to the holiday, all the small dogs were gone. I had to make a choice. Either no dog or a slightly bigger dog. I had clicked with the wonderful dog with the blue eyes and silver white coat and I decided that she needed a good home. Back we raced, arriving just in time to complete the paper work before they closed. I had heard that cats that had two blue eyes were usually deaf, so I asked about this dog. They didn't know if she could hear or not. But, I had to have her and into the car she went. We arrived at home and I presented my son with his "new dog". She wasn't what he had in mind, but he gave her a name and we proceeded to make her a part of the family. On Christmas day, we decided to test her hearing. As she was sleeping in the living room, we began to bang pans together....nothing. She continued to sleep. She was deaf. The only time in the past 11 years that we have felt she can hear a little is when our other dog barks...she will jump up and start barking herself. Maybe it is just the vibration of the other dog's bark that alerts her. She has gone through several names, none of them matter since she can't hear it...She has been "Zergling","Cattie-Brie" and now "Big Dog". She has been across the country during her life. She began on a 28 acre farm where she ran to the barn in the snow and played in the ponds and then moved out to Oregon where she found that the ocean and the beach were a blast and there were a million sticks to play with and chew on while following the logging trails in the mountains. Now she is back to her farm in Kentucky. She has begun to slow down now and sometimes, doesn't even make it to the barn. It is sad to see her sitting back at the house while I am feeding the horses. She just sits and watches, waiting for me to come back in her direction and to rub her head. We have a small valley with a grove of trees where we have buried most of our pets. I don't think that I will be able to put her there though. I need her close by. I recently found a lady online that will make a life size stuffed replica (Plush, not a taxidermy type) of your pet. Big Dog could be my stuffed animal forever sleeping on her favorite doggie pillow at my feet. Big Dog is insecure due to her deafness. She has always picked up that I was the real pack leader rather than my children. Because of this, we have always been close. Her blue eyes always made her look like they were crooked and the kids would make fun of her. I would defend her. It also took her a while to be able to catch things, they made fun of that too. I was always there to take up for her and protect her. I would wash her after she would go swimming in the dirty pond water and of course I stayed with her all night when she first came home and was lonely and crying. Now that all of my children are grown and gone, she is my little one to look after. When it is her time to go, I am not sure how well I will handle it. She will be missed.
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Contributor's Note
This morning it snowed for the first time this year. Big Dog ran out into the snow and plowed the snow with her nose. She loves to do that with water and snow. She was very very happy this morning.
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This intel first appeared on: http://www.squidoo.com/My--Big-Dog-
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Big Dog
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