It’s pretty common for people to have a conversation with me when they find out that Target is deaf. I am definitely that weirdo in the dog park who sees another “white gene” type dog and bounds over to get the scoop from its people. After all, everybody likes to have likeminded friends, right?
However, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Target’s existence hasn’t always brought about the best of conversations. The man in the park who called Target “defective” as a puppy was only the beginning of my trials with how some people see him. There seemed to be very little middle ground in the general opinions of a deaf dog. On the one hand, you had supporters who would comment on how he’s “just gorgeous” and “a deaf dog is like any other dog, right?”
On the other hand you had the naysayers convinced that “he’s not fulfilling his life’s purpose by not herding sheep!” I have even been told, more times than you think, that Target should be put to sleep, simply because he was born deaf.
The middle ground to this argument became almost nonexistent when he became reactive. Especially when these conversations were due to the fact that they had mistaken Target’s “Die Die, Kill, Kill Stare” for “Bedroom Eyes” from across a busy intersection and had come up expecting big fluffy cuddles. Instead, they were met with Cujo and his rapidly eye-rolling mom trying to convince him to stop barking or be on our way as quickly as possible. After they witness his reactivity, the human opinion is either that he is a poor, terrified, deaf, muffin who knows no better.
(Trust me, he knows better)
I am thanked, profusely and unnecessarily for caring for him in his uncontrollable and unpredictable, deafness related fears!
(Enabling… Enabling Enabling, but ok).
Or, it’s that Target is a dangerous beast that could potentially hurt somebody, is miserable in his life because he’s not fulfilling his “life’s purpose” and I am just a selfish human for not putting him out of his misery.
In the beginning, I would have to withdraw from the people who openly criticised my dog’s right to life (usually while chanting “Lead With Compassion, Lead With Compassion” and resisting the urge to whack them in the face with the heavy part of Target’s rope leash).
However, as time went on, I started to realize that these people were opportunities for conversation, too. Despite sitting on vastly opposite sides of the fence, we were looking in the same direction. We believe the same thing. Even though humans can do everything right, nature just happens sometimes and deaf dogs can be born to responsible breeders, Target’s deaf younger brother and sisters are a sign that there was something wrong that was missed or ignored. So in this case:
There shouldn’t be dogs like Target.
I love Target, I’m happy to have him, but when you start to read the stats on deaf dogs, when you start to actually look around, he was very lucky. Deaf dogs are dumped all of the time, most of the time because they are deaf.
In terms of happiness I can certainly say that Target is like any other dog. He doesn’t know he’s deaf. But, it’s not realistic to say that taking care of a deaf dog is the same as taking care of a hearing one. I believe more people need to be open to the idea of adopting or keeping a deaf dog, but I also believe that deaf dogs are not for everybody.
(You can believe me I’ve raised a hearing one and a deaf one within 10 months of each other. If I hadn’t lost my marbles when I agreed to do that, they’re definitely all gone now!)
The humans who believe he is miserable have no idea about dogs like Target, but through him they have the opportunity to learn. In these situations, when Target has stopped losing his mind and throwing down Border Collie gang symbols with his ears, I invite these people to meet him, give him a cookie and realize that he just sees the world so differently than we see it; even so differently than how a regular dog sees it.
I hope they realize that the life of a dog is given purpose by the people in it, not the jobs they accomplish or the disabilities that hinder them. Most of all, I hope that when other people are faced with a negative opinion on their dog, a dog or even the subject of dogs like Target, they take the opportunity to have the conversation.
Somebody said to me recently, “Disability does not determine destiny” and I think Target proves that every day.
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