Signal dogs safeguard hearing-impaired owners

From: Raleigh News, NC - 25 Jan 2003

By AMANDA GREENE, , The Associated Press

WILMINGTON, N.C.(AP) - Teezer doesn't miss much. A fire alarm blaring, a phone ringing, an egg timer dinging. And each time the doorbell rings at Art and Bev Schuette's house, Teezer gets another chance to strut his stuff.

On the job in his orange "Signal Dog" vest, he jumps up from his resting spot at Bev Schuette's feet and barks in the direction of the sound. He runs toward the sound for a moment and comes back to get his owner, pulling at the leash attached to her belt.
"OK, Teezer, let's go. What do you hear?" Bev Schuette says, getting up from the sofa in the family room and following Teezer through the kitchen to the front door.

He jumps into the air. Nose pointed at the doorknob, he pushes on the door with his determined paws. She opens the door. Standing outside is Art Schuette. Teezer looks a little disappointed and follows Bev Schuette back to her seat.

This time, the doorbell exercise was just a test, but next time might be the real thing.

No matter. Teezer always performs like a professional.

Teezer is a hearing assistance animal or signal dog - a schipperke with black puffy fur, bright eyes and alert ears. Bev Schuette is completely deaf in her right ear, only has 40 percent of her hearing in her left ear and wears two hearing aids. Teezer is there to inform her about certain sounds around the house and out in public.

Bev Schuette's need for a signal dog is part of a growing demand in this country, said Pete Rapalus, national public relations manager for Canine Companions for Independence.

Most of the guide dog schools in the country have waiting lists of at least two years, he said.

"If all of the guide dog schools in the country doubled our work, then we'd meet the need," Rapalus said. "We're meeting about half the need out there now."

In Wilmington, Carolina Canines for Service is getting two or three requests a week for training a hearing assistance dog, but it won't start training the dogs until April or May.

"Right now, we're teaching one dog as a test model. We've got the capabilities to train them, but we haven't advertised it widely yet," said Rick Hairston, executive director. "With service dogs and hearing dogs, the industry is less than 30 years old, so we're in our infancy as an industry, and hearing dogs are starting to really get popular."

But a signal dog isn't for every deaf or hearing-impaired person. It takes a lot of dedication on the owner's part to continually train the animal. That's what Laurie Schultz of Teammates Training Center in Julian, N.C., told Bev Schuette before agreeing to train Teezer.

"These dogs are a great help if the owner understands that your dog is (on duty) 24-7. There's a lot of care involved," she added. "They're not a hearing aid you can just put in and pull out."

There's also a financial commitment to owning a signal dog. The cost, depending on the kind of dog and amount of training, ranges from $4,000 for a mutt with six months of training to $30,000 for a purebred with nine months of training, Schultz said.

In the six years they've had Teezer, Bev Schuette has made her commitment to her signal dog. She hired Schultz to train Teezer for six months to alert her to sounds such as knocks at the door, the stove timer alarm, the telephone, alarm clocks and fire alarms. Teezer also knows public sounds such as a car horn honking and the "beep, beep" a large truck makes when it's in reverse. Teezer recognizes certain words such as "Bev," "Art" and "squirrel," phrases such as "Go get Bev" or "Go get Art," and even some sign language such as the signs for sit, heel and come.

Schultz likes to train smaller dogs for hearing assistance because they are better for traveling.

"I look for alert, smart, playful, well socialized dogs between 11 and 18 months old who will respond to humans and are well-mannered," she said.

Bev Schuette continued Teezer's training. First, she tied him to her bed for the first two weeks so he would learn to stay with her at night. Then she tied his leash to her belt loop on her left side so he went wherever she went in the house or in public. Today, the Schuettes run drills of different sounds frequently to keep him in practice.

Today, Teezer goes with her everywhere, whether it's on an airplane or boat or in restaurants, grocery stores, Home Depot, doctors' offices or meetings. She takes him to many of her night meetings and boat safety training courses as a staff officer with the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

If someone is calling her name across a room, for instance, Teezer recognizes it and pulls in the direction of the sound.

"If there's a lot of background noise or someone's mumbling in a room, I can't hear at all," Bev Schuette said. "I'm a fairly active person, and Teezer helps me stay that way."

When they go for walks, Teezer alerts her if someone is coming up behind her in a car or bicycle.

"Imagine going for a walk and your hearing aid goes out and you can't hear the birds or your feet on the pavement," she said. "If a car honks its horn at me, I can't hear it, but Teezer can alert me."

He even goes on her boat for Coast Guard safety patrols to alert her to sirens from other boats on the water. The only places she doesn't take Teezer is to concerts and basketball games where there's a lot of clapping and cheering because "that's just too stressful for him; too much sound. He just barks," she said.

At home, Teezer helps her when Art Schuette can't be there. His schedule as a traveling salesman for AG-BAG International farm equipment was another reason the Schuettes decided to get their first signal dog.

"If she's sleeping on her left ear at night, she can't hear a thing, so having Teezer is great if the fire alarm goes off at night when I'm not here," Art Schuette said. "I was traveling three to six weeks at a time, going to Australia, Argentina and Uruguay to sell equipment, and I worried about her being alone."

Though Bev Schuette hasn't had any life-threatening situations such as fire alarms or break-ins, Teezer has helped her avert potential dangers.

"I don't burn the hard-boiled eggs anymore, and that could have been a fire hazard if the water had boiled down and the eggs had caught fire," she said.

Part of the responsibility of owning a signal dog is learning to follow it whenever it comes to alert you.

"He's come over to me just to show me the fax machine was going off or woken me up when the garbage truck was making noise," Bev Schuette said. "But the one time I should have listened, I didn't."

Just two years after getting Teezer, Art Schuette was coming back late from a trip to Maryland. He called his wife to tell her he didn't think he could make it in that night and would get a hotel room on the way. Bev Schuette locked the garage door and went to bed. At 2 a.m., Teezer woke her to go outside for a bathroom break. Meanwhile, Art Schuette decided to come home, but he didn't have his keys to the garage.

At 3 a.m., he knocked on the kitchen window and yelled to get Teezer's attention. Teezer went to get Bev Schuette, but she thought he just wanted to go back outside.

"I said, 'Teezer, no, I just put you out.' I didn't think it might be an emergency. I didn't have the hearing aid on so I didn't know Art was knocking at the door," she said.

Teezer returned to the kitchen where he could look through the kitchen window to see Art Schuette.

"He just looked at me as if to say, 'Sorry, I've done all I can do,'" Art Schuette said, laughing. So he went to Waffle House to wait until 5:30 a.m. when his wife let the dog out again and found Schuette waiting at the front door.

Since then, when Teezer comes to take her to see something, she goes.

"Without him, I would have to get lights on the phone and flashing fire alarms," Bev Schuette said.

"And even then, how do we know she'll see the lights flashing," Art Schuette added. "It's better to have Teezer."

Watching Teezer as he scratched at the door, ready to go out to search for squirrels, Bev Schuette said, "I would be lost without Teezer, especially if something happened to me when Art was away.

"Plus, Teezer's good company. If you're going to talk to yourself, it's better to talk to a dog, I guess," she said, laughing. "When he's not working, he's just like a pet anyway. He's part of our family now."

© Copyright 2003, The News & Observer Publishing Company.