Meg, my Hearing Dog...

Meg, my Hearing Dog for Deaf People with her jacket on and her lead.

What does she she do?

As I am profoundly deaf and unaware of sounds unless I see them happening, Meg is my ears to alert me to them.

She works mostly in my home (or any other environment where there are the same sounds to be alerted to).

In the kitchen she will tell me if the cooker timer has gone off.

In the kitchen she also tells me (but she was not trained for these) if I have left the tap on and it is now just started flowing over the sink to the floor (I seem to have a knack for doing this because I cannot hear if I have left the tap on, something may have distracted me and I walk away from the sink); and if food is coming to the boil she will alert me and bring me in the kitchen; she also seems to sense just before food or toast is about to burn and also bring me in the kitchen well before the smoke alarm goes off; she tells me when kettle has boiled; and if the washing machine has finished its cycle.

In the front room and the rest of the house, Meg alerts me to my text phone going off, the doorbell ringing, someone knocking on the door, and a timer alert. Meg has trained herself to alert me to alerts on my laptop, my tablets and other stuff.

In my bedroom she is trained to the alarm clock to wake me up in the morning.

With all these sounds she comes up to, puts a paws on my leg (or nearest part of my anatomy if I am lying down in bed) thus alerting me. Once she has my attention, she takes me to the source of the noise.

There is one exception. The fire alarm. When she alerts me to that, she lies down and does not move (playing dead so to speak). She does not take me to the source of the noise in this case. This tells me we both have to get out of the premises.

I now also have a carbon dioxide detector, which although has a different noise (apparently) she immediately figured out to do the same as the fire alarm. So she trained herself for that one.

A hearing dog might only be trained for about five noises, maybe six at the most.

She was also trained for certain voice commands...
"Sit"
"Down"
"Wait"
"Stay"
"In your corner"
"On your bed"
"Off"
"Heel"
"Leave it"
"Fetch"

In addition to soundwork, Meg was trained to pick up small objects I drop, for example the house keys, but she is only a small dog and I have car keys, house keys, and my remote control for my cochlear implant on the same keyring. There is a small fluffy dog attached to them which enables her to grasp that so she can pick up the keys and reach up my leg as far as she can and I retrieve the keys from her mouth. She does this for me at the front door because I drop them, trying to get the key in the door.

Meg does much more than that. I cannot think offhand all the noises she does for me because she is part and parcel of me, we are an integral part of each other. Meg is now in her thirteenth year. Nowadays Hearing Dogs are usually retired long before this, but Meg is still active as a puppy. On my request they have extended Meg's retirement day for me quite a few times, but this is the last extension they will allow me. She has to retire next June.

Will Meg go into retirement? I don't think so. I think she will work until the day she dies. Meg shows no inclination of tiring in her work as a Hearing Dog.

My last Hearing Dog (Meg is my second Hearing Dog) when she got to be an older lady she looked from her bed as she got older with her face saying "Oh botheration, have I really got to work for this sound..." ..and she would heave herself out of her bed with which looked like a big sigh and come to alert me and amble to the source of the sound....by which time the caller at the door had long gone by the time I had got my sticks and heaved my own way to the front door. So my last Hearing Dog was retired, but she never stopped working completely. I had to stop treating her once she was officially retired, but she always tried to work for me even though she was slow. She was a much bigger dog than Meg...more of a large labrador sized dog.

I could have had a new Hearing Dog once my last dog was retired, to have both dogs at the same time. But with my health I couldn't cope with two dogs so I declined and kept my last Hearing Dog until the end. Then I applied for a new one. The new one turned out to be Meg.

Again I have declined to have two dogs alongside each other. Hearing Dogs would like me to be trained with a new Hearing Dog soon so that the new one will be ready when Meg retires. I cannot cope with two dogs again. My health is not good enough. In any case, Meg is so devoted to me I cannot see a newcomer being allowed to take any part of her place here. There is enough game playing and jealousy between the cats and Meg. There is an uneasy truce between them. Meg came to me when I only had eight cats, so you can imagine the fun and games then. Because as far as the cats were concerned I was theirs, and they did not like this intruder. Only three of those cats remain now, so they are all very elderly (in their twenties I think now) though they don't act like it.

My last Hearing Dog absolutely adored my cats and their kittens, they all slept together and there was no game playing like I get with Meg and the three cats I have now. I will have to dig out my old print photos sometime...a blip or a few for another date...

In the meantime here is a link to Hearing Dogs For Deaf People if you would like any further information here