One loving dog owner is leading efforts to change the way the world sees deaf and blind dogs, by sharing tear-jerking clips of the unique ways she communicates with them.
When Amanda Fuller came across a post online about Keller, a deaf puppy who had been rescued from a breeder who had planned to shoot her after discovering she couldn’t hear, she knew instantly that she wanted to give the little Australian Shepherd a home.
What vet technician Amanda didn’t know was how much Keller would go on to change her life, by inspiring her to dedicate her time to rescuing and training deaf and blind dogs.
Amanda, from Maryland, US, had no experience of caring for a deaf dog when she first took Keller home - but she soon found that the pup’s incredible abilities were a complete contrast to all the negative information she’d been faced with while researching deaf dogs.
After discovering Keller’s adventurous personality, finding that the Aussie dog loved to go swimming and hiking as well as being quick to pick up new tricks, Amanda set out to help other dogs just like Keller and help fight the misconceptions surrounding deaf and blind dogs.
Amanda, now 29, went on to adopt more dogs, and now has six Australian Shepherds at home - five of which have either hearing or visual impairments.
Along with Keller, her other dogs Hamilton, Clementine and Canon are either partially or fully deaf, while four-year-old Calamity is both deaf and blind.
Amanda set up her own training programme Thumbs Up Training , which specialises in teaching dogs who are deaf, blind, or both. Named after the praise signal she gives to deaf dogs, Amanda learned how to use inventive ways to communicate with dogs who can’t see or hear.
While she uses voice commands for blind dogs and hand signals for a deaf dogs, Amanda had to get more creative when dealing with dogs who are both deaf and blind, like Calamity. Putting to use one of the only senses left available to these dogs, Amanda uses touch cues to train them.
“The possibilities are endless,” Amanda explains. “Whether it’s a poke, or like a grab of their hair slightly, or a swipe - there are so many different ways you can touch them to mean different things.”
Using hand signals or touch commands, Amanda has successfully trained many deaf and blind dogs an impressive amount of tricks and commands, including her own beloved pack of Aussies at home.
Keller and Calamity each know around 50 tricks each - from spin, roll over and paw to more fun commands like “footsies”, a touch command Amanda has taught Calamity which tells her to walk with her paws on her owner’s feet.
“There’s really no limit as far as what they can learn,” Amanda says. “It’s just about taking the time to communicate with them in a way they understand.”
She shares videos of her clever pups on her TikTok page @amandaandheraussies, where millions of viewers have been amazed by the tricks that Keller, Calamity, and the others have learned.
In one clip that shows how Calamity responds to touch commands to perform an impressive range of tricks, one person commented: “You and she are amazing! It makes my heart so happy, it made me cry happy tears.”
Another user simply said: “Truly amazing.”
Amanda also co-founded Keller’s Cause, to help raise awareness of double merle breeding, which is when two dogs with a special speckled coat called a merle coat are bred together, which can commonly lead to puppies being born with hearing and visual impairments.
Named after Amanda's beloved first deaf dog, Keller’s Cause ended up stepping in to rehome deaf and blind dogs, and has since helped over 100 rescue dogs to find loving new homes. “It’s been really rewarding,” Amanda says. “We’ve placed a lot of dogs in really wonderful homes, and it’s been nice to see them flourish and complete people’s families.”
Amanda says that having deaf and blind dogs around the house isn’t as different as many might think - the dogs instinctively use smells and vibrations to pick up on everyday activities, such as knowing when it’s time for a walk or some food.
She hopes to show through Thumbs Up and Keller’s Cause just how wonderful deaf and blind dogs can be as family pets, and urges people not to be put off rescuing a dog because they can’t see or hear. “Disabilities are only what you make them,” she says.
“For dogs that are born deaf and/or blind, that’s their normal. They have no idea that anything is different for them. They go about life normally, they play, they do all of the normal dog things - because they don’t know anything else.”
“It’s common for people to think of a deaf and blind dog and they feel sad for it - they don’t think that it has a normal life, or a happy life,” she adds. “But for the most part, they do live normal lives.”