What are the different types of deafness in animals and how are they detected?

Unlike humans, the dogs They have one ear very reasonable. Despite the fact that they were born deaf, with clogged ears and immobile ears, after two weeks they open their ears and after a month they already have good hearing, which discriminates and classifies sounds as they did their wolf ancestors. Their ears have up to 17 muscles, 9 more than humans.

Likewise, they can detect sounds between 20 and 65,000 vibrations per second, whereas humans can only pick up between 20 and 20,000 oscillations per second. It is for this reason that the dog can perceive sounds inaudible to the human ear. However, some may suffer hearing problems.

“It’s not the same for your dog to have hearing problems as a puppy than for him to have become deaf as he got older, because it has to do with fibrosis of the eardrum, which is called otoesclerosis“, he explained to GlobeLiveMedia the doctor Juan Enrique Romero.

In this sense, the expert explained that “the eardrum is like the membrane of a drum. If you throw sound waves on the membrane of a drum, the membrane moves and makes… do you remember the ossicles? The anvil, the hammer, the stirrup, the lenticular. They are the ones who impact later and generate all the stimuli to hear. But when time passes, this whole chain hardens and deafness appears, senile deafness difficult or impossible to curenotes the veterinarian.

“In principle, the first thing to do is to consult your veterinary to check for an earwax blockage or something blocking your hearing, but most likely with age a senile deafness appeared“, said the expert

But deafness in animals is not only due to age, because there is another call congenital. This hearing loss, which usually occurs in white cats or white dogs, occurs when an animal has not heard since birth. In other words: born deaf

“When he Cat or dog is deaf from birth occurs frequently in white dogs like the Argentinian bulldog, or the bull terrier and also in the Dalmatian, enter into the equation the composition that it has genetically. It’s that it’s produced by the atrophy of an organ called the cutting organ, which is a small organ that goes around there,” Romero said.

In Romero’s words, when the judiciary “does not exist, there is no aunt”. Faced with this situation, the vet said that “there is no way to solve the problem”. That’s why he warned that the best way to help these animals is to give them “special training with vibrating collars and a remote control. That’s technology that works for a deaf dog.

“I can have a remote control and a vibrating collar for the dog to look at me, and when he looks at me, I start with sign language that the animal will no doubt learn,” Romero continued.

At the same time, in conclusion, he recommended: “When you are walking a deaf dog or when you have a deaf cat, in the first case, don’t even think about letting go because he doesn’t know what it means to hear in anticipation of a threat, and if you have a deaf catit’s a indoor cat with absolute security, because the outside becomes a threat to him”.

*Production of the video that accompanies the note: Dolores Ferrer Novotný Director: Samuel Cejas Editing: Facundo Madero

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