Recall for elderly potentially deaf dog?

[ObsessiveGoogler]

Hello. We have a 13 year old dog. Recall took a long while to develop, but has been solid for about the last eight years. Over the last few months it's become a bit less reliable, but in the last few weeks seems to have disappeared completely. She's trained to a whistle and doesn't seem to notice any more - she'll come to my voice but only when she's quite close. I've tried a whistle with varying frequency and absolutely nothing. I'm wondering if she's lost some of her hearing? She's clearly not completely deaf but doesn't seem to notice noises so much outside the house. I'm thinking she could have lost high frequency sounds - i.e. why she can hear my voice to some extent but not the whistles. She doesn't seem to have any discomfort in her ears, but does seem a bit "clingier" than usual. I'll obviously get her checked out at the vet, but does anyone have any ideas? Would a referee whistle be better? Has anyone used the electric buzzer things, and can you retrain an elderly none-too-bright dog use one? She's incredibly physically fit for her age and runs for miles, so I don't really want to keep her on the lead if I can help it, but at the moment I have no real control.

I’ve been teaching mine hand signals.
Perhaps you could teach her to look at you more, to check in with you, when off lead, then use a signal for her to come back?

@PersephoneParlormaid thanks. The problem is she has always roamed quite far from me (she runs in huge circles, but still in my sight) and that has always been fine because of where I walk her and the fact she had solid recall. She doesn't look at me at all to be honest. Not sure how I could train her? Any ideas would be useful.

My collie went deaf and it was through the recall and her emergency stop starting to fail that I realised. I got away with it for a while with her off lead but had to admit defeat and put her on a Flexi when she ran off because she thought she was behind me but was actually ahead. Tried to call/whistle her but she just couldn't hear me. Luckily she stopped when she got back to the main road and waited and a lovely couple found her and called me, but I was so worried. She had about two years on a Flexi before I had to have her PTS at 16.

Try a storm whistle. One of our dogs is quite deaf and, like yours, wasn't hearing us. I trained her with the storm whistle. However, there is a distance beyond which she doesn't hear it so I need to keep her reasonably close.

I tried different frequencies using an app on my phone first and she couldn't hear the higher frequency ones so a dog whistle would have been no good. I started by blowing the whistle near her and giving her a high value treat and worked on recall from there. I'm only sorry I didn't train the other dog at the same time as she's getting a bit deaf too. She just associates the deafer one coming back to us with getting the treat. She used to stay much closer to us so wasn't an issue but she has taken to going a bit further afield now.

Thanks. Have actually just ordered a flexi @Lighterandbrighter as don't think I'll ever be able to trust her fully again if she's anywhere near danger. And will look at a storm whistle @OchonAgusOchonOh - thanks.

My 13 year old springer had rock solid recall until a few months ago. But he's gone deaf (I knew his hearing was deteriorating) and I have him on a Biothane long line now. He got 200 yards ahead and until he turned round to see my hand signals I couldn't get him back .

@muddyford it’s sad isn’t it? Our dog loved her freedom but even if we have some success with a different whistle I’m not going to be able to let her off so much now and will need to keep her on a long line or extendable lead.