The relationship between genetic deafness and fear-related behaviors in nervous pointer dogs

Nervous pointer dogs have been extensively characterized as an animal model for some human pathological anxiety states. During our work with these animals suspicion developed that some of these dogs had a hearing deficit. We decided to systematically evaluate this observation and to study the relation between hearing status and fear-related behaviors in the nervous pointer dogs. Our results revealed that a majority of the nervous dogs in our colony (75%) suffer from bilateral deafness as demonstrated by complete absence of brain stem auditory evoked response. Furthermore, behavioral ratings revealed that hearing and deaf dogs do not differ in their pathological response to the characteristic fear-provoking stimuli (e.g., human interaction) and that both hearing and deaf nervous dogs markedly differ from normal dogs in that respect. The relation between these abnormalities and their implications for research involving breeding of animals for selected traits are further discussed in this report.