Dennis and Crackers on Hearing Dogs ... Part One

Peter: Hi. Today, we have Dennis Robertson and his best friend Crackers, the Hearing Aid Dog. Is that right?

Dennis: Close. There's lots of names for them, but yes, Hearing Assist Dog, Hearing Dog, Signal Dog, Alert Dog, and you're right they've even been called Hearing Aid Dogs. They're all Hearing Dogs.

Peter: Great. Dennis, correct me if I'm wrong, but you yourself are hearing impaired?

Dennis: Yes.

Peter: How long have you been hearing impaired and to what degree?

Dennis: I didn't know what it was at first. About 30 years ago, I was starting to get dizzy spells and problems like that. It wasn't affecting my work or anything, but it just didn't feel right. After a while, (I was a typical man, it takes a while to get prodded) I went to the doctor and they checked and checked. I had x-rays and spent a fortune on the medical system to try and find out what was wrong. It was getting worse and worse. I think it took well over 10 years to determine that it was a deterioration in my hearing.

Peter: About this time you were in your forties?

Dennis: Yes. I had since moved into Kamloops, and I got a very good ear, nose and throat specialist. He did a simple test with the old tuning fork and he just looked at me (with this big shiny thing on his head) and he says "Dennis, your hearing is starting to go. You have a disease called otosclerosis." This is primarily the growing together of the ear area where the three middle bones are (the hammer, the anvil and the stirrup).

How they correct this, and they still can today, is surgery. They remove these bones and then replace them with a wire and attach it back into the hearing system. Your hearing (in my case) really improves. It allowed me to keep working. It was just wonderful and it lasted me about seven years. Then it starts all over again. With the risk of surgery and everything else, I opted to just try the hearing aids. And I went down to the severe to profound hearing level.

Hearing now, rather than decibel loss, they classify as mild, moderate, severe, profound and deaf. This is because its so hard to measure in decibels ... certain tones you'll hear very well, maybe 80% and others you don't hear, so your decibel hearing of that is zero. Consequently they grade your level of hearing and work generally in the speech level of tones. These are important because they are the tones we usually communicate in.

Peter: You hear me fine now. Is this because of the hearing aids?

Dennis: That's part of it. It's also because of the speech reading. It used to be lipreading. We always talked about lipreading. Well, that's part of speech reading but as you expand on that ... your eyes tell a lot ... your body language ... you're nodding your head now, so that all helps. You didn't have to say yes.

Peter: So, even with your hearing aids, you'll never be able to hear completely and that's why you have Crackers.

Dennis: Yes. Once your hearing is damaged ... the little hairs inside the cochlea ... they never repair. They'll never grow back. And the same with [me] ... once it's [the bones in the middle ear] closed up, it's sluggish ... you'll only hear bits and pieces. But the ones you can hear are amplified and that helps you because at least it takes a lot of the work out of hearing and you can say, "Oh. At least I could hear that tone fine. Now what else is there?"

Maybe I could show you a good example. I don't want to digress too far ...

Peter: No. That's good. This is all good info for visitors to the site.

Dennis: Here are a couple of little examples ... visual, but referring to hearing:

Visually, if you have perfect hearing it looks like this. It's readable. Clear. It's bright and it doesn't take a lot of effort to read that.

However, if you start to lose your hearing for whatever reason, diseases or just plain damage, your hearing would look like the second example.

This is what I was saying you only pick up parts of it and it changes. The hearing aid amplifies the pieces of the hearing that are there. Now you have to fill in the blanks.

Peter: Before the interview you were sharing with me what it sounds like to you when someone was talking to you. Maybe you could share that with us.

Dennis: (imitating what conversation may sound like to someone with hearing loss. Broken up.): I try to im .. ate li..e th..t ...ju...li..e th..t. You ge..these pi..ces. It's hard to do, but...ye...(Dennis nods)...yea... So you say, "oh that's yes."

Peter: So, you get little bits of sounds and you have to fill in the gaps?

Dennis: Yes. And as you expand on that you ask ... Do you hear the doorbell? Do you hear the telephone? Do you hear the smoke alarm? Now you see what's happening? Those are straight tones. Those are the gaps. So, consequently that's where Crackers comes in. Those are the tones I have trouble with and ...

Peter: Can you explain how Crackers helps you with these sounds?

Dennis: (Laughs) How much time do we have? I go on and on about my dog. I'm a great talker.

I'll start with how I got started with Crackers.

Peter: That would be great!

Dennis: As I said, my hearing was deteriorating. I had to do something. It was starting to affect my work. So I had the operations, called a stapendectomy ... where the wires were put in. It went along fine for seven years or so. Then ... now what am I going to do? Now I'm getting into my fifties, (mid fifties or somewhere around there) and my family realizes it. My friends realize it. We [someone losing their hearing] don't always acknowledge it. It's sort of a denial thing.

My wife and daughter had seen a hearing dog. The telephone pioneers had trained a dog and couldn't place it and they [wife and daughter] said it would be great for you. I said "just what I need with all the pressure from work is a dog." So ... this took a few years.

Finally, one day my daughter went to Vancouver, where they have service dogs ... for people in wheelchairs ... and got all excited on that. Then they said we also have hearing dogs. She had a quick demonstration of the hearing dog. She fell in love with the idea and came back so motivated ... well, how do you say no to your daughter?

I went down and looked and there were labs and it was great. We looked and here's this dog (gestures to Crackers). After an hour, they said that's your dog. Well, I had trouble accepting that dog and I had to go back a few times to look at it.

The trainer was just moving to Vancouver from Canine Companions for Independence, out of California, where they have over 900 service hearing dogs out in the field. And Patty [the trainer] was up here ... she was just moving and Crackers was going to be the demo dog. So, I made an application, which costs $25 - $50 to make, expecting to wait four years. Patty thought this dog [Crackers] is haywire. That guy [Dennis] is haywire. Let's put them together and so they can become a team. It was a perfect match. Just a perfect match.

... So you go through your training and that's when I found what the dog really did for me, because quite frankly, I didn't know. I'd had a little bit of an overview, but as you know, when you're working you only get pieces. You think "My whole life. I'll deal with it later!" Well, it wasn't later, it was there. Now he goes to work. Now he goes everywhere. He was a certified dog (whatever, that means to me at the time), but I was started and was trained.

He does the telephone, which is important at work. Your phone rings ... other phones ring ... how do you know? I just hear or may not hear. Now the dog hears. So, we got that program going. Smoke alarm ... extremely important. Because that's when you're sleeping. You don't have your hearing aids in. You're very vulnerable and that's a dangerous situation. He does the smoke alarm.

Now he alerts me. This series of dogs, this generation of dog jumps on me ... small jump ... and he takes me to the sound. He takes me to the phone ... it's interesting ... the closest phone. If it's downstairs, I don't have to go to the phone he's trained on in the kitchen. He will take me to the closest phone. I don't know if he's lazy or smart, but whatever. It works well. He'll do 3 phones in the house which is a good layout.

He'll also do doorknock, doorbell. He does name call ... odd term, isn't it? But it's a wonderful thing, if you know of anybody that is hard of hearing or deaf in the family and you're trying to get their attention. They're downstairs. You're upstairs. I really don't want to go downstairs, so what do we do? Human nature is to yell. Well that didn't help anything. You yelled and the neighbours heard, but whoever was downstairs didn't.

But in my house, anybody could just go, "Crackers." Get his attention ... that's very important. Get the dog's attention first. He looks. He stares. "Dennis" WHOOP! He's down, no matter what I'm doing ... alerts, and takes off. I have to follow him. For whatever sound, I'm not sure. Is it a boiling kettle? A pot boiling over? Is it a coffee maker? A doorbell ... whatever sound it is, doesn't matter.

Peter: He even does the coffee maker?

Dennis: He does! He started that lately. He picked that up. He decided that it's important because I guess I'm grumpy before coffee ... I don't know. But he does that. And they [hearing dogs] do. They will change, because they will learn your sounds.

And I follow him. Now, if I don't and I say just a minute. He's gone. He's up the stairs. I say "Oh well, he'll be back." Oh! He's back, alright! Even if you're working. Boom. Boom. Boom. [Crackers will jump on Dennis] You have to go. He's just a pest. That's how he's trained. Pester. Pester. Pester. He's thinking ... This is important. It's my job. So, you go up the stairs ... there's somebody waiting. Dinner's ready. Very Calm.

In the old days, somebody would yell, or call to me and I would have to come down the stairs. Supper's ready. Supper is on the table. Everybody is waiting and I say "How did I get into trouble?" Do you see how it develops. Anybody hard of hearing really appreciates that. It's a small thing for the hearing person ... good for others.

Peter: We take it for granted how many times we need to hear.

Dennis: Yep. And that's when you're not looking. There's no speech reading in that part. Same as downtown. Somebody sees you and wants to get your attention. It happened this morning. Somebody wanted [to get my attention] ... they knew. There was Crackers. There were people all around. One hundred or some people at this breakfast. Somebody saw me and said to themselves "There's Dennis".

They called. "Crackers. Denni. Dennis."

Next thing I know he nudged me and I say to him, "What are you doing?" Don't question your dog. That's hard to overcome.

I turn back. There's this lady I know. We had a little talk. She wanted me to do a talk at a school and it all developed. Rather than her rushing through all these people, it worked itself out.

-HCOL-

That's it for this months' segment. Next month will continue with part two of our interview with Dennis and Crackers. If you have a question or comment for Dennis and Crackers, feel free to contact them at crackers@hearingcenteronline.com

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