What is a service Dog

Some of you may be asking, what is a hearing dog? What is a service animal? This is the first question I will answer.

A hearing dog is a service dog for the deaf or hard of hearing. So… maybe we should start with what is a service animal. This is an animal that is trained to do a certain job for someone with a disability. The type of service animal most people know about are seeing eye dogs. They help people who are blind navigate and stay safe. They are trained to keep their handlers safe, help them avoid obstacles, even practice “intelligent disobedience” (not doing what their handler says if it can put them in danger).

To learn more about guide dogs, you can go to https://www.guidedogs.com/.

There are other types of service dogs too! Dogs for alerting to diabetes, cardiac events, seizures, autism, and so much more. In short, a service dog does a job, and is a partner to their human (called handlers). These dogs are not pets, but they are working partners of their human, they do important jobs, keep their humans safe, and are needed. These dogs also need to be understood by other people. They should not be pet without permission, as it can distract the dog from doing their really important jobs.

Service dogs are legally allowed to go anywhere their handlers go. This includes into stores, schools, work, restaurants, on flights, amusement parks, hotels, doctors offices, even hospitals. As long as it isn’t a safety issue for the animal (they can’t go into lions cages… but neither should their handler) or sterile environments, such as operating rooms). This is because they are so important to their handlers.

So now that you know what a service dog is, what does a hearing dog do? What are they trained to do for their handlers? See the next post!