Can Reputable Breeders Produce Deaf Puppies?

Hard yes. Unfortunately.

All our pups are BAER (hearing) tested before they head home. A unilaterally deaf, or uni, pup can live an absolutely normal life. They hear fine and compensate well for their deafness on one side. A fully deaf pup can also live a totally wonderful life, but does require different training and more management than a hearing pup.

Our hope is, of course, to produce fully hearing pups and we only consider pairings where both sire and dam are BAER tested to be bilaterally hearing.

Unfortunately, it's not as simple as breeding fully hearing to fully hearing (although doing so has made great improvements in hearing rates within the breed).

When planning pairings, we also take into account hearing results from the dogs in their pedigrees in an effort to reduce the risk of unilaterally or bilateral deaf puppies....however, deafness is inextricably linked to their extreme white colouration and all the best efforts can *not* remove the risk.

Deafness in Dalmatians is complex. The biggest improvement in deafness rates has come about as a result of BAER testing allowing breeders to identify unilaterally deaf dogs and thus remove them from the breeding pool.

Genetic correlations between deafness and blue irises show an increase (+0.6) and pigmented head patch a decrease (−0.86). Like so many issues, it's unfortunately not as simple as allowing head patches (which, for the record, I'd be totally fine with) or disallowing blue eyes (I believe AKC is the only KC where blue eyes arent penalized in some way).

From the study that demonstrated the correlation between blue eyes/head patches and deafness rates: The inheritance of congenital sensorineural deafness appears to be complex, and its genetic basis remains unknown despite efforts to identify causative variants.Dogs with normal hearing status (based on BAER testing) can be carriers of the risk mutations responsible for congenital sensorineural deafness, and therefore disease prevention by selective breeding is challenging.

(https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jvim.15776)

This is why we BAER test! To know hearing status of each pup, which is part of the decision making for puppy placement.