I have 5 yr old choc lab,who I have had since 18 months old.He was severely abused befor I got him.Very recently it seemed as if he went deaf overnight.The vet thinks he has probably been partly deaf his whole life due to the abuse and was able to compensate for it up until now.I would imagine at 12 yrs old it is due to old age.Sorry I cant offer more help.

Shelley

It's probably old age.......and other times it can be due to genetics, trauma or disease/infections.

I've had a few dogs that lost their hearing due to old age and I found teaching them hand signals worked really well.

Be sure not to come up from behind and surprise her.

I second what annz says. If you sneak up or startle them be prepared to get a nip on the foot or leg.

One of my Shih Tzus lost her hearing at the age of 11 1/2. Not all of it but quite a bit. I would have to talk to her ear (louder) until the end. She heard loud bangs but a lot of the hearing was gone. I always thought that she lost her hearing at the same time, or around the time when she had a retinal detachment (went blind in 1 eye...). I swore that it all happened during a thunderstorm. She would shake uncontrollably. My holding her didn't help. Valium didn't help.

She lived with limited vision in 1 eye, and hearing almost all gone until the ripe age of 18. It seemed that she learned to compensate for the hearing loss and the lack of vision with her smell and maybe a sense of vibration, because she would know when we came home or were around her. It was amazing how she developed an extra sense to know what was going on around her. She never missed a treat ;) I kept the furniture and other things so she didn't have to learn new ways. Although, we moved when she was 16, and she adjusted just fine.

The Shih Tzu I have now is 13, and her vision and hearing seem fine. However, I'm not 100% certain that she is purebred. She's a puppy mill dog that looks 95% Shih Tzu.

My lab was deaf the last couple years of her life. She adapted surprisingly well. In her case it seemed like her eyesight might have improved, but in actuality, I'd guess she just learned to depend on it a little more.

We developed a set of hang signals that she learned and responded to very quickly. Hopefully it doesn't sound terrible to say, but we thought of her deafness as a blessing after our DD was born- the dog was never distressed by a crying baby. In her case, the deafness didn't ever seem to bother her much.

Our old, lone cat we have now is deaf-ish. It's been tougher on her. She yowls a lot and has gotten more high strung about things, understandably. We recently got her some homeopathic anxiety drops for animals that seem to do a pretty good job calming her when she's having a bad day. She's sort of learned the same hand signals that our dog did. In both cases, eye contact became of the utmost importance.

I 3rd Annz comments. I've had several deaf dogs and currently have a 15 year old Westie that has been deaf for about 2 years, and 3 younger hearing dogs. Stuart tends to sleep a lot, so I find it's important to wake him as he can't hear my calls to include him in activities. Also, Stuart (and another dog I had, Ginger) sometimes will "hear things" and bark or become scared. I find that loving petting is all that's needed to get him through it.
Your dog will probably pick up hand signals fast; Stuart did.

We brought home a 5 yr.old shi-Tzu from the Humane Society 1 1/2 yrs. ago.Now, she is 6 and deaf overnight. Vet says it probably was coming on but not sufficiently noticeable. Now, how should we handle this? We love her just the same but she hides all day in the bathroom

You can buy vibrating collars, so you can get her attention. There is a problem with certain ear cleaners that can cause deafness...maybe that was it? Or she is older than you thought?