Our almost 14 Springer Spaniel is quite deaf, but not totally. A sharp clap of the hands will get his attention. He actually barked at the mail man today, but that might have been more from feeling the vibrations than actually hearing him.
Since our other one (the avatar) is a basset and the spaniel was not trained well about running into roads (we adopted him when he was 7) we always leash them both up when we take them into our small fenced-in back yard.
Good luck
