MrShineyhead's Travels:
Deaf Dog in the Park | State Fair | MrWildWildWest | Gone Fishin' | The Pirate | Me Here!

Tales in The Dark:
The Mountain Lion | Ice Lake | Civil War | Lorelei | The Goblins

With a special ASL translation of:
The Star-Spangled Banner

Deaf Dog in the Park

I wake up to another beautiful day. I get up, pry open my sticky window to look out and think about going out to play ball with the dogs. Closing the window, I get dressed. It’s a short sleeve kinda day, warm and beautiful.

My doberman is the first dog that responds to my call. He’s an enormous dog with sharp pointy ears, huge muzzle and chest. Then along comes the little pug, with his big eyes and smashed-in nose. I look around for the third dog who I see is still sleeping. Yo! I give him a shout, but oh yeah, he can’t hear me cuz’ he’s deaf. He’s snoozing away so I go over and give him a pat. A classic dalmatian, white with black spots, he jumps up enthusiastically and is immediately ready to go.

I find everybody’s leashes and get the doberman and the pug hooked up. By then the dalmatian is sleeping again! I wake him up with a pat, get his leash hooked and we’re good to go.

Grabbing the ball off the shelf, I notice a flashlight there and figure I’ll bring it along. We manage to maneuver out the door and after I get all the locks locked up we head down the tree lined street. The dogs are excited, it’s a perfect kind of day.

We get to the park, near the lake and settle in to play some fetch. The doberman is raring to go. I show him the ball and he’s just chomping, ready to run after it. I make a motion to throw the ball and the dog takes off running. When he realizes I haven’t actually thrown the ball he comes back. Cracks me up! They fall for that every time. I make a few more false throws, he lunges each time, until I actually give it a heave. He takes off and with perfect timing he leaps and grabs the ball in midair. Then he brings it back and after some effort I manage to disengage the slimy thing from his teeth.

Then it’s the pug’s turn and he’s very excited. I give the fake throw, which of course tricks the pug and he takes off. He comes back and again I try to fake him out a couple of times. When I finally give the ball a toss, that little pug just gives it all he’s got, running pell mell to try to snatch the ball. He too jumps up with perfect timing, but realizes he can’t catch the ball because it is too big for his little pug mouth. It drops to the ground and after a few bounces the pug is able to wrestle a bit of it onto his teeth and he brings it back.

Now it’s the dalmatian’s turn but he is, again, asleep. With a little pat, he’s up and ready to go. I try the fake out maneuver with him, but he doesn’t even think about going for the ball until I’ve actually given it a toss. The intelligent one of the bunch! So I give it a heave and it’s gone. The dalmatian takes off and the other two dogs and I lose sight of him. We wait for a while, then a while longer. It starts getting pretty late. The sun is going down and still no sign of the dalmatian. I give a shout - hey! But of course the dog is deaf and can’t hear me. I imagine how great it would be if I could pull a switch to get the sun to flash on and off like lights do to get the dog’s attention, but of course, that isn’t gonna happen.

I hook up the other two dogs and go searching for the dalmatian. I’m wondering what the heck happened. We search far and wide. The sun sets; the moon rises, a nice little sliver of a crescent moon and still no sign of the dog. All of a sudden the two dogs bolt.

I can see some smoke and a fire off in the distance. I’m following the dogs, grab my flashlight, and am able to see a bunch of dogs, every imaginable breed, all sitting around a big campfire. What the heck? They’re all signing away like crazy, and my dalmatian is telling them about me always trying to fake him out playing catch. He turns to me and tells me to just chill my jets, that he’s in the middle of a conversation with his buddies and he’ll be done in a bit. I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to get my dog away from these other dogs and then it occurs to me they’re all deaf, and in typical deaf fashion, could go on shooting the breeze together all night.

Translation done by: Cathi Bouton, M.A., CI and CT, ASLTA Professional