Deaf girlie is sometimes reactive upon waking, how can we help?
Hey all! My husband and I are fostering a double merle Catahoula/pittie mix, and we've been having some issues 😅 we're new to deaf doggos, and I feel like we keep failing with her because we just don't know enough even though we've tried researching as best we can.
The biggest issue atm is that if anything is near her when she startles herself awake from a nap, she instantly goes for it and attacks it until she comes to her senses/gets physically separated. She's done this once to one of our cats (we thought maybe it was due to the low light at the time because she has issues with her eyes), and just now outside (in the shade on a sunny day) to our other dog. She started to whimper and tucked her tail as soon as she realized it was our other dog, but at that point it was too late and she'd already given the tip of his ear a little puncture. He was an absolute champ with her, btw, which I do think helped.
Is there a way to teach her that when she's startled awake (usually by herself and not someone/something else, but not always obv), that she doesn't need to try to kill whatever is directly in front of her?? I can't imagine how hard it is to be in a new house, with new animals, and not know what's going on, but heck we can't have her hurting anyone else either. This doesn't happen every time, either, so we don't know if it's because of how deeply asleep she is, the lighting, that she isn't comfortable with us/our animals yet, or something else? All of the above??
She's got so many other issues (medical) that we've just become overwhelmed and don't know where to start with this, or how to help her best. She's such a sweet lil goober, although incredibly stubborn and too smart for her own good (she managed to break out of her crate earlier today 🫠), but man she's so difficult in ways we haven't experienced before.
Thanks in advance for any and all help!