Bay news 9 did a story on Jilly, the Hearing Ear Dog that was trained by Carrie Silva Wooddell from The Doghouse, LLC.
Jilly is helping her owner Jenni who is unable to hear sounds such as the telephone alarm, the oven buzzer, the door bell and sirens in the news clip. Carrie Silva Wooddell got her first certification in dog training through training Hearing Ear Dogs as service animals. Carrie is fluent in ASL (American Sign Language) and has assisted many Deaf and Hard of Hearing clients and dog teams. These dogs become the ears of these clients and it is amazing for the clients to regain their confidence and live life to the fullest by relaying on their dogs to provide this service to them.
Jilly, is a mixed breed dog and was trained at The Doghouse in a customized Full Service Training program. All the exercises and skills were taught to Jilly and then it was transferred over to her owner’s home. Once the dog understands how to take initiative from the sound, it is simple to transfer the handling. Jilly was very motivated by food and loves pleasing people. She has the perfect temperament for this work and because of her size, she was very easy to travel with. Programs like this can take 6-8 weeks to teach reliable obedience training and then add in the sound training. It is important to select the right personality and temperament for a Hearing Ear Dog. They need to social for public places, have the right balance of food drive and be motivated to do the work. A common issue with Hearing Ear Dogs is that other members of the family can hear and sometimes respond to the sounds for the Deaf client and that can confuse the dog. When training a Hearing Ear Dog, everybody in the dog’s household need to understand their roles.
Jilly, Hearing ear service dog
