Pros and Cons of Natural Cat Litter

While this does not relate to deaf animals, I feel this is important to share as it concerns the health of animals and humans as well as the environment. There's a wonderful vlog for American Sign Language (ASL) users by Raychelle. The English version you will see on the link below is an addition to the ASL vlog. She discusses about the pros and cons of the four natural cat litter: Feline Pine, Swheat Scoop, Yesterday's News and World's Best Cat Litter. I hope that by watching the vlog, this motivates the non ASL users to learn the beautiful language in its own right.

http://ecodeaf.blogspot.com/2010/02/reviewing-natural-cat-litter-pros-and.html

I am a frequent visitor of www.ecodeaf.org and encourage you to check the site out. It's a wonderful place to learn how to be eco conscious and friendly.

Meet Brein and his Deaf Dog!

Brein, who is deaf himself, gave deaf dogs a chance by adopting his own deaf dog and share the importance of giving deaf dogs what we take for granted in the Deaf community and that is the use of ASL and some aspects of its culture. Here is his vlog in ASL:

http://signcasts.com/node/202

Deaf-Blind Dogs Can Lead a Normal Life!

While I appreciate some of Carl's blogs/vlogs on http://carl-schroeder.blogspot.com/ about deafhood and linguistics when it comes to people, I was disheartened and saddened by what he expressed and how this deaf and blind puppy had to endure based on what he said in his vlog.

There were some things I noticed that were not done appropriately that may have contributed to this puppy's fear. Puppies do not come out of the womb afraid for no reason. Nothing doesnt seem to be done carefully and slowly to allow this puppy time for adjustment with every new thing at a time but instead was bombarded with everything thrown at its way. This is pretty obvious because this puppy was brought home at one month old or so and already given up within a few months with everything I read that shouldn't happen. This puppy was set up to fail. It is my observation that this puppy had a bad start and is not at fault.

#1 -- This puppy wasn't given time to bond and develop trust with one person who'll become its master, become familiar and comfortable with its home environment/territory and learn commands before introducing to other humans or animals, one by one with plenty of time space in between.

#2 -- This puppy with these special needs should not be in a home with young children and would be better off with one adult or two in the home. Who can expect children this young, 10, 8 and 6 not to leave things around, tease the dog or step on it? No one should be allowed to throw a ball at a deaf and blind dog or expect it to fetch a ball. Throwing ball, as common sense indicates, is inaccessible therefore not accomodating for this kind of dog. Tug of war rope or some kind of independent toys that it plays on its own would suit a deaf-blind dog.

#3 -- Why change dog food when the puppy was eating the old dog food and let it starve? Too much changes in short time is not good at all. With the puppy not being toilet trained, go figure with everything that has gone wrong from the start and at that age.

#4 -- Deaf animals require touching to replace the lack of sound along with sight but with a deaf-blind dog, it requires a whole lot more of touching to make up for lack of sound AND sight. It depends on tactile communication. I do not see any of this and I perfectly can see why this puppy gets frightened by touch it hardly was exposed to.

Just because a person is deaf and works with deaf or deaf-blind people doesn't make the person qualified to consult or train about a deaf or deaf-blind animals just as much as just because the person is hearing and works with hearing people doesn't make the person qualified to consult or train a hearing animal. There are people experienced and/or specialized in caring for those kind of animals.

With that said, the puppy was in the hands of people who do not know how to deal with a deaf and blind dog. It has absolutely nothing to do with the puppy being blind on top of being deaf that failed him. It is human who failed this puppy and the puppy chose to stay at one place and not move because it has no clue and has given up trying. I can imagine it being confused and scared. It won't surprise me if this puppy was euthanized by sheer arrogance and ignorance of some people involved.

There are success stories of deaf-blind dogs who lead a normal life by people who know how to deal with them rather than giving up and blaming on their blindness. Who are we, deaf people, to talk like that about blindness when the majority in our society views our deafness just like how deaf people views those who are blind? Anything deaf is not superior than anything deaf-blind when it comes to animals. For anyone in deaf community to say that, is it a projection that also meant deaf-blind people as well are inferior to us, deaf people?

Check this link at http://www.pawstoadopt.com/blindanddeafdogs/ and it has a lot of wonderful resources as a guide for deaf-blind dogs and I absolutely concur with it. Reading this will show that this deaf-blind puppy did not receive proper care and training. It took this deaf-blind dog in this link a year to learn this one thing.

Here is youtube of deaf-blind dog playing with blind dog and article about deaf-blind dog that were posted on this blog a while ago:

Deaf-Blind and Blind Dogs Having Fun

Hearing Dog Found Deaf-Blind Dog

Here is a few links of and about deaf-blind dogs:

http://www.deafdogs.org/resources/otherlinks.php#deafblind

http://www.rollingdogranch.org/dogs/spinner.html

This blog will close with this quote:

"It is the ultimate test of our worth as individuals and countries how we treat the most vulnerable and disadvantaged." Sir William Deane, Former Governor General, Australia.

ASL Vlog: Sign Language Not Only Benefit Humans

Lauren Ridloff explains about how chimps blossom through sign language vs. voice. It shows that people involved with the usage of sign language to make it accessible and possible for chimps have a better understanding of their needs and are sensitive. I would like to see more people with a similiar attitude towards deaf dogs and cats or any other deaf animals that rely on sign language and visual cues as they need it.

Here's Lauren's wonderful vlog:

Chimps and Sign Language

Introducing Deaf Animal Row

In this ASL vlog, Raychelle introduces the Deaf Animal Row blog and discusses the parallels between the deaf community and deaf animals, and how our indifference can lead to the demise of the deaf community.



English transcription of Raychelle’s vlog by Katherine. The bold is Katherine’s addition to Raychelle’s English transcription of her vlog.

Hello! Welcome to our Deaf Animal Row blog/vlog. It is for deaf animals, who are on deathrow, across the United States. Many of deaf animals are put to sleep due to their inability to hear as a result of people’s ignorance. Often when deaf animals are born -- dogs, cats, ferrets or any other deaf animal -- some people are uncertain how to deal with deaf animals because they are used to aural/oral approach of raising and training an animal. In addition, some people view deaf animals as second class to hearing animals, unfortunately, and feel deaf animals are better off euthanized. Because of their lack of awareness of or exposure to the importance of gestural/visual based approach, deaf animals are set up to fail.

Here’s the definition for each label:

DEATHROW -- A limited time in a shelter before it is put to sleep. No time can be wasted.

RESCUE -- An organization or individual(s) that helps pull out an animal, who is in danger of being put to sleep, from the kill shelter and is safe while trying to look for a foster home or a permanent home.

FOSTER -- An individual offers her/his home to take care of the animal temporarily until adoption.

ADOPT -- An animal found a permanent home.

These labels are how it works with animals. Sometimes it goes from rescue to adopt, skipping foster or from deathrow to adoption. This website uses these labels, including euthanasia. Euthansia happens when no one adopts or rescues the deaf animal from the shelter and it is when the deaf animal will be put to sleep.

Some of you are concerned about how one can get a deaf animal that is not within your area. For example, you are from California and there’s one in Georgia you want to consider, but it is impossible to adopt or foster this deaf animal. Do not fret, there will be some people willing to volunteer their time to help transport the deaf animal from one place to another. This is common in the animal rescue world across the nation, so do not give up and work closely with them. I encourage you to think about it and seek assistance to get a deaf animal from one place to you. It can be worked out if you set your mind to it.

Now, if any one of you have something to share, be it article, stories, information, resources, your experience having a deaf animal, videos, anything you can think of that relates to deaf animals, do not hesitate to send us an email at:

DeafAnimalRow@gmail.com

I want you to know that having deaf animals in our lives is wonderful and they are no different than hearing animals except that it is our job to accommodate to their needs. We rely on lights, vibration, use of eyes, touching, etc. It is really amazing. How we, as deaf people, function in ways that differs from our hearing counterparts parallel to that of deaf animals vs. hearing animals.

Someone from the Deaf community mentioned that deaf animals are different and they’re not one of us or part of the Deaf community. I question that and want to discuss a bit about that. Deaf animals and people’s accommodations and experiences are similar when it comes to oppression and how they’re viewed by the hearing society. Deaf animals and deaf people both rely on gesutral and visual communication. We need to be receptive to the fact that deaf animals rely on visual accommodations rather than sound based approach in order to be on par with hearing animals. Deaf animals are indeed members of the Deaf community and are not to be excluded. Who are we to complain about exclusion by hearing society when we impose the same treatment on the very deaf animals?


Last point, do you remember the last time when www.deafread.com posted someone’s blog or vlog one month or two months ago about this poem by Lilly Benedict Crisman? See her ASL and English versions below:

ASL: http://blog.deafread.com/deafdiscourse/2007/03/25/when-they-came-for-me-there-was-no-one-left-to-speak-out/
English: http://blog.deafread.com/deafdiscourse/2007/02/09/a-poem-by-lilly-benedict-crisman/