Ya know.. this don’t make sense.. or does it…? Hummm… We’ve all heard of service dogs, right? There’s the guide dog for the blind, and so on.. ok? Now here’s where the confusion comes in. We know about the deaf dogs.. dogs who are actually deaf and dependent on visual signs (either home signs or ASL). Search dogs for the police and missing persons… etc, etc… With me so far? Ok.. what about the hearing dogs? Wait.. hearing dogs? Do I mean dogs who can hear? No no no no no.. Hearing Dogs (as in Deaf People). HUH? Oh.. duh.. Hearing Dogs for the deaf.. they’re the ones who are trained to ‘hear’ for deaf folks like the doorbells, telephones, alarms, etc etc… but my quesiton is this.. we call non-deaf folks ‘hearing’.. we call dogs hearing because they can hear – not because they do a service for the deaf. So why the hell are they called ‘Hearing’ dogs?? Why can’t they (or we) come up with something else? Alert Dogs? (grins) .. could mean anything! Alert to anything and everything.. Alert us.. hey.. that’s not too bad.. and a lot better than ‘Hearing Dogs’.. “Oh.. he’s an Alert Dog – alert for what specifically? Any ideas out there?
Earful Dogs?
Sound Dogs?
Listen Dogs?
Vision Dogs?
Anyone…?
well Rob my dear friend,
the answer is simple, dog for the blind is called a guide dog, because it’s guides them, the hearing dog hears for you, so it’s called a hearing dog, yeah I suppose it could be an alert dog, lol. but then that sounds pretty silly.
I think they all probally had the same confusion as you when they tried to name them.
what makes me laugh about these hearing dogs, is that they are trained to let the owner know when someone is at the door!! apart from deaf dogs does anyone know a dog that doesn’t go mad when the doorbell goes or someone knocks? I’ve had dogs all my life, not hearing dogs, and they all bark and come and look for you so they themselves can see who’s at the door lol the trainers have a good job eh..
Well My dear friend… I have always called my Dog “Dixie” ! Okokok….. I know I know…
Seriously now… I dont see why we just cant call the dog a service dog. The dog is doing us a service! Why do we need to be so specific as to the type of service the dog provides?