12/06/2025
Hello, friends!
As you may know, we were part of the recent charge to BAER test spotted and higher white puppies with other wonderful breeders. We knew we wanted to BAER test when we embarked upon this journey with the Gryffyn Aeyrie dogs and we’re happy to add more data to the pool!
We tested all 7 puppies and 6/7 had full hearing. Red collar boy (affectionately nicknamed Skillet for now) is unilaterally deaf in his right ear. Unilaterally deaf means he still has full hearing in one ear. We’ve actually suspected this for a couple weeks now and I mentioned it to the tester. A friend on our discord server asked what signs we noticed that made us suspect Skillet was unilaterally deaf, and I want to preface this: I was on high alert for any signs of hearing abnormalities because of the high white in the parents, so I was examining these puppies constantly.
First, Skillet didn’t startle like his siblings when their ears first opened. That can be attributed to his ears opening late, absolutely, but he also had a really hard time locating where a sound was originating from. He’d stand in a corner of the whelping box and tilt his head and listen so extra hard and then he’d flip around and run the correct direction of the sound. This happened for about two weeks and then dissipated. He’s clearly figured out how to navigate the world with one ear and it hasn’t slowed him down at all… I assure you 💀
I wanted to get information from the testers and get pictures and video to show the process, in case anyone was curious! The first seven pictures are BAER results for Skillet and the rest of the puppies so you can compare. The audiologist explained that the peak and valley in blue is the left ear hearing and the same peak and valley in red is the right ear hearing. As you can see, all the puppies have both peaks and valleys in both ears. Skillet only has them in his left ear; right ear shows more of a straight line with slight dips and increases but not the peak and valley, which indicates he does not have hearing.
The next picture shows how they held the puppies to insert the needles and then throughout the test. The needles are tiny acupuncture needles and none of the puppies even noticed let alone fussed about it. They inserted one behind each ear and one on top of the head. The last picture shows the one on top of Skillet’s head. After they insert the needles, they put a little ear bud tube down in each ear canal for the puppies to listen for a clicking noise and that’s what’s recorded in the BAER test results. The video nested in the comments shows the little ear bud type device and how they put it in the ear canal.
Once all the puppies have registered names and numbers, results will be submitted to OFA as their first health test! Please let me know if you have any questions whatsoever. 🫶🏻