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March 29, 2005
"Jazz" The Hearing Dog
Here's a photo of my new dog. He was my mother's dog until she passed away this past year. He is a two-year old Papillion (butterfly ear) and he is just as smart as a whip. He's been trained to aid people with certain disabilities. Specifically, people with hearing impairments, however he can easily retreive help for people with a host of medical conditions when he is given a cue or when he observes an obvious problem (such as fainting). When he is in service to a person iwth a hearing impairment, he can notify the person to unusual sounds, alert when the phone/TTY rings, doorbell, or if there is a crying child in the house. His ability to learn tasks related to "alerts" seems limitless, and he often just picks things up on his own based on his human's response to a given sound. As with all trained service animals, he behaves in public places, goes to the bathroom on command (o.k, well not always), and rides well on public tranportation. One of the things that I have noticed while taking him in public is that people do not believe that a service/assistance dog can come in such a small package. People usually associate service animals with larger dogs that are used for mobility, however small breeds make excellent medical alert and hearing dogs. Jazz gets to play a lot -- he doesn't always have to be "on duty". . . .
Posted by Lana at March 29, 2005 6:18 PM
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