Perhaps no one knew you were deaf and most people assumed your dog was just a pet, not a guide dog?

As for a blind person, it’s pretty obvious. That person has a “blind” look on his/her face and the dog has a harness/bib.

Generally, the public already knew not to approach a blind person’s guide dog because the animal is working. Your situation is a different story.

A “cool dog” doesn’t mean a dog that’s going to play or be petted. That would be considered disruptive behavior by students, teachers, staff or administrators if done without permission of the dog’s partner. It ould also be considered disruptive if the partner allows petting without permission of the teacher, staff or administrator inappropriately, such as during a teacher’s lesson.

Most kids are only used to pets that aren’t very responsive to commands and have poor public behavior, and are fascinated by a well-trained dog’s professional behavior.

I am stopped frequently by strangers who ask if they can pet my hearing dog. I have struggled with this over time and I have found a solution that works for me. I trained my dog to go to an individual person for petting on command. If the situation is appropriate, I will give the command and point to the person who is permitted to do the petting. I give another command to call my dog back to my side when I feel things have gone on long enough.

Instead, the one deaf owner of an assistance dog that I’ve known took a different approach. The owner basically used the trained hearing dog as a way to initiate amiable contact with other people. This is not inherently wrong, as far as I know, but it did not earn the owner any admiration from other deaf people who didn’t go around with a cute canine.

Does one really need a hearing dog to be the cool pooch? If a cool pooch is all that’s needed for the sake of striking up interaction between the deaf owner and hearing people, perhaps it is not proper to use a hearing dog in that capacity. And perhaps a cool pooch should not be admitted to schools as a status symbol for the deaf owner.

I have no direct knowledge of the case described in this original article, so my comments are not directed towards the people in Nassau County. This is simply a response to the last point in Cheryl’s posting.

1. We are not privy to the whole story, only what has played out in the media, and I’ve been told by those who know the Cave family that a lot of news accounts got details wrong.

2. We also can’t know for sure what barriers John Cave deals with. We don’t know how much the CI helps him, what classroom acoustics he contends with, etc. A CI doesn’t restore hearing (I have one). If the story was about a blind child or a child in a wheelchair, people would understand why an assistance dog would be needed and not be so quick to pass judgment. I’d like to see more support for John Cave. He’s shown a lot of grace and maturity under all kinds of pressure and bad treatment by his school administrators.

3. The need for a hearing dog goes beyond the IDEA and learning. They’re about issues of access and safety covered by the ADA. This doesn’t mean that every student who is deaf or hard of hearing should have the right to have a hearing dog in the schools. There are still other expectations, particularly that the animal be uner control and nondisruptive. But “nondisruptive” should be fair and limited to the dog’s public behavior (no inappropriate barking, jumping, etc.) and not used as an excuse by teachers or administrators who do fail to control their classrooms and hallways or to support only appropriate interaction with the dog by anyone other than the partner.

4. I have 27 years of hard experience with being questioned and often challenged about public access, not only by restaurants and airlines and stores but by hearing, deaf and hard of hearing people. I think there’s a fundamental misunderstanding about the role of the hearing dog. Having the dog with you 24 hours a day can be key to an effective partnership. Over time, each of my dogs and I have developed a rhythm as we learn each other’s abilities and idiosyncracies and build our ability to communicate. We learn different things about each other as we experience different situations. The bond and trust that is built through those shared experiences is incredible.

5. When I got my first hearing dog, a colleague reacted with dismay. “Oh Cheryl! You were always so independent!” I was completely taken aback because I have never felt so independent as I do when my hearing dog is with me. Hearing dogs can be taught to alert to any number of things, but every dedicated hearing dog partner I know will tell you that it’s not the full story. There is so much more information I get from what my dog does or does not do. I can figure out where a strange noise is coming from just by the tilt of my dog’s ears, and whether I should pay attention because her demeanor shows it’s startled her. It gives me a real and important sense of peace and security.

6. I was the only deaf student in my school throughout elementary school, high school, and college. Following a teacher was impossible and socializing was very difficult. I have heard countless times through the years that students with disabilities who have an assistance dog have found it helps them to make friends and be much less alienated. Instead of the kid who is weird and different, they’re the kid with the cool dog. I think that counts for something.

Cheryl

Regardless… I disagree with you with the fact that a hearing dog is needed in a classroom setting when you have an interpreter, note-taker, and an implant. This is a classic case of a candle that’s seen as a bonfire.

and that 150 million? NOT COOL! (woofs in agreement!)

In his post, Adam makes the gross error of assuming that all deaf students are alike or can benefit from the same things. Even though Adam and “millions of deaf children … went to school and survived just fine without guide dogs” [sic], that doesn’t negate the benefit that this particular deaf student derives from his hearing dog’s skills.

I find it particularly fascinating that he brings up the “deaf=disabled” coda in order to argue against the use of hearing dogs. Instead of using hearing dogs, Adam suggests, deaf people should instead rely on other people, presumably those who can hear, in order to make themselves aware of potentially life-threatening sounds like fire alarms or sirens. Yet if, as Adam is concerned, using a hearing dog makes deaf people appear “disabled” in the eyes of their hearing peers, I should think he would be more concerned about the passive impression a deaf person might make if he always had to follow his hearing classmates out the door during a fire alarm, or wait for people to approach him in order to get his attention. As Adam stated, “… being deaf means learning those adaption [sic] skills and educating others on how to work with deaf people.” Why must adaptation skills preclude or exclude the very viable option of using a hearing dog rather than always relying on the dependability or kindness of hearing people?

I appreciate that Adam took the time to post and share his concerns about the appropriateness of using a hearing dog’s services in the classroom. However, his post discourages, rather than invites, dialogue on this issue. I would encourage Adam and interested others to look at the website of the International Association of Assistance Dog Partners (IAADP) to view a list of sounds to which hearing dogs can be trained to alert. Most of sounds listed on this site, and many others not listed, do exist and do occur in the world beyond one’s home: http://www.iaadp.org/tasks.html

being a devil’s advocate here - if you’re in an area where there’s not much technical and repairs support, it might be beneficial to have the dog to balance it out.

It seems to me that the parents went around it the wrong way… They should’ve sued the schools for not being compliant with ADA in terms of technology.