Need info on Hearing Dogs!!!

Woofy

Woofy

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Hello all,

I am interested in getting a hearing dog. I live in north California. It is to my understanding that there are two programs nearby where I could adopt a specially trained hearing dog.

SPCA in San Francisco and Canine Companionship for Independence (CCI) are the two programs that I am aware of.

I know that the staff who is employed at SPCA located in SF look for dogs from local animal shelters and train them to become hearing dogs. They have all kinds of dogs, big and small.

As for CCI, the staff have a group of people who volunteers to watch after dogs (especially Labs) when they are about 2 months old and start training them at a young age.

If I adopted a dog from SPCA SF, it will be a little cheaper as opposed to CCI when they will be a little more expensive.

I would love to read your comments if you have any feedback or acknowledge on this very topic. And, share with me on this thread.

Thanks…
 
I did my research a few years ago, went with CCI and have never regretted it.

CCI = Professional working dogs.
SPCA = Adopted pet dogs that help out.

No disrespect to those who got their hearing dogs from the SPCA, but the majority that I have seen were no more than pets that could legally be taken anywhere. Typical dog behavior consisting of barking, bothering/scaring people in public, sniffing, pulling on leash, etc. I cringe every time I see this happen as it undermines the public image that these service dogs have. I did know one that I considered decent though, except for his barking, so apparently it's a hit and miss thing.

With CCI dogs, they're ALL exceptional, or they don't get to graduate into service duty. Their dogs are bred from a long line of specialized service dog breeders. You get it's full medical history, lineage and solid support from CCI for the life of the dog. With the SPCA, you get a dog with a questionable past. Is it deathly afraid of something absurd that you won't find out until a year down the road? Is it going to develop a expensive medical condition? Will you even know what kind of breed it is?

CCI will train you for two weeks on law, handling, bonding and advanced training so you can incorporate new things down the road. My understanding is that with the SPCA, it's one week of basic training and they don't arm you with the knowledge and tools to constantly improve your dog's work abilities.

There are two catches with CCI that I can think of - The first being that a CCI dog is not yours, and will never be for as long as it is a service dog. They will always remain the property of CCI. However, upon retirement, you are supposed to be given the option of keeping the dog. That part bothered me a bit at first. The 2nd thing is somewhat tied in to the first. If CCI notices that you neglect it's training, upkeep, diet, etc. Ie, if your dog develops behavior problems due to your poor handling, or gets fat because you overfeed or feed it incorrectly, or let it's nails grow long, etc., CCI will most likely take the dog away from you.

To recap: Want a hearing dog that mostly stays home, and does most of it's sound work around the house? No monitoring from the service dog agency? Feed it table scraps? Let it run around off-leash in an unenclosed area? I encourage adopting a SPCA hearing dog. There are too many dogs put to sleep every day, it's heartbreaking. Want a dog that you can comfortably take to work, conferences, meetings, hotels, planes, etc without issues? Go with CCI.

My dog goes nearly everywhere I go, so going with CCI was a no-brainer. Hell, I even take her surfing. :cool:

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Here's a dry picture of a couple of CCI hearing dogs that went camping with me last spring. You can sorta see one behind the other. Good looking dogs if I don't say so myself. :-D

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I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have, or engage in civil discussions with any other hearing dog owners here.

-Aquaman
 
P.S. I've seen you somewhere before, Woofy. Can't remember when/where though. I used to work at DCARA up in northern California if that helps ring any bells for you.

-Aquaman
 
Aquaman,

Thanks for the info about those two organizations. That was extremely helpful! Thanks for the pictures. Is that a purebred yellow Lab? :ty:

I used to live with my ex who had a hearing dog from SPCA in San Frisco. He learned to recognize my sign name. When my ex needed me, she would sign my name and the dog would come up to me and tap me with his front paws and "tell" me to follow me to her. There were a lot of commands that he was well trained to do. I was quite impressed.

But there was a HUGE drawback... Due to the fact that he was a pound dog (rescued from an animal shelter), he had a tendency to literally break through cabinet doors or anything that was between him and the trash or dog food.

So, I have been looking at CCI. I have started the first step by filling out this 2 page prelimary application with CCI. I understand that they will send me a thick package of many pages that I need to fill out which I will be more than happy to do.

Like you and others have stated, that CCI picks out their puppies from a list dog breeders rather than dogs that were plucked from eating garbage on the streets. So, therefore, the CCI dogs have a better chance of doing their jobs that they have been trained as opposed to the dogs from SPCA. Rationally, I would think that a CCI dog would be better behaved than one from SPCA.

I love animals. I am all for adopting animals from animal shelters and give them second or third chances at life rather than being put to sleep because no one wants them.

I would like to get a successful hearing dog that can do its job. I would like to take him/her to my college classes. (I teach ASL at two different colleges.) Plus, I have a young daughter who is about that high. I would like to take the dog everywhere with me including the beach. :h5:

One glaring question is that I cannot find an answer to from the CCI website, is…. What is the cost to get a dog from them?
 
Woofy said:
One glaring question is that I cannot find an answer to from the CCI website, is…. What is the cost to get a dog from them?
Click to expand...

According to the class I attended there, the cost "per dog" comes out to almost $50,000. Meaning, that'd be the cost to replace the dog with 1 on 1 raising and training strictly for replacement purposes. I then heard another figure - the actual out of pocket cost is $17,000 for CCI - since volunteers and donations take up a lot of the slack (puppy raisers, sponsors, free food, etc), and they do group trainings, etc.

Your cost? Two weeks of your time, a couple hundred bucks for the necessary paperwork, a kennel for the dog to take home, etc. The rest of the cost is covered by donors, and fund-raising on CCI's part.

At least that was the case for me a few years ago.

I should probably take this opportunity to add that if you lose, or get the dog killed due to your own negligence, there's a good chance CCI will come after you for the cost of a replacement since it was still their dog. :deal:

The vast majority of CCI dogs are not purebreds, but LGX's. LGX's are Lab and Golden Retriever Crosses. However, they come in all sizes and shapes (almost). Some look like Black Labs. Some look like Golden Retrivers.

-Aquaman
 
Aquaman said:
According to the class I attended there, the cost "per dog" comes out to almost $50,000. Meaning, that'd be the cost to replace the dog with 1 on 1 raising and training strictly for replacement purposes. I then heard another figure - the actual out of pocket cost is $17,000 for CCI - since volunteers and donations take up a lot of the slack (puppy raisers, sponsors, free food, etc), and they do group trainings, etc.

Your cost? Two weeks of your time, a couple hundred bucks for the necessary paperwork, a kennel for the dog to take home, etc. The rest of the cost is covered by donors, and fund-raising on CCI's part.

At least that was the case for me a few years ago.

I should probably take this opportunity to add that if you lose, or get the dog killed due to your own negligence, there's a good chance CCI will come after you for the cost of a replacement since it was still their dog. :deal:

The vast majority of CCI dogs are not purebreds, but LGX's. LGX's are Lab and Golden Retriever Crosses. However, they come in all sizes and shapes (almost). Some look like Black Labs. Some look like Golden Retrivers.

-Aquaman
Click to expand...

It only costs $200?!? Sounds very reasonable considering the fact that CCI spends a lot of time and money to properly train their dogs.

How long did the process take once you started the process?
 
Aquaman,

As for your dog, is he/she Golden Retriever/ Lab cross? What is his/her name? Did CCI give it a name? Or, did you give it a name?
 
About $200, give or take. It was a 2-year wait for me to get to the top of the list for a dog from CCI. They have considerably expanded the Hearing Dog Program now and the wait is now probably under a year.

She's a LGX. She came with a name from CCI like they all do. Names are generally given based on donor or volunteer support. Ie, if somebody named Ira donated $10,000 to CCI, a dog will most certainly be named after him. One time there was a dog named Home Depot. It was funny. They ended up calling it "Homer" and trained him to respond to "Homer" instead but his paperwork said "Home Depot".

My ex hated her dog's name so she picked a new one after graduation and retrained her dog to respond to the new name instead.

I briefly considered renaming my dog "What" but decided it wouldn't be funny anymore after a while...

Cute girl: Hi, that's an adorable dog you have there...

Thanks. Since it takes one to know one, you must be adorable yourself.

Cute girl: *giggle giggle* What's your dog's name?

What.

Cute girl: W H A T I S Y O U R D O G ' S N A M E ?

Uh, I said what.

Cute girl: Like, oh my gosh, this is stupid. I asked, WHAT IS YOUR DOG'S NAME?!?

What.

Cute girl: Oh forget it! I've got better things to do. *walks off*

But... But I didn't even get your number...

Nah.

I only share my dog's real name with a select few people because she is trained to obey and respond to her name. Can you imagine if all 1000+ kids at my school knew her name? They'd all be trying to call her out of the room or over for pets during lunchtime. Instead, I give out a different name for her to strangers and students. All the kids now scream "Fido! Come here Fido!" :giggle: :giggle: :giggle: She just ignores them.

-Aquaman
 
Aquaman said:
About $200, give or take.

She's a LGX. She came with a name from CCI like they all do. Names are generally given based on donor or volunteer support. Ie, if somebody named Ira donated $10,000 to CCI, a dog will most certainly be named after him. One time there was a dog named Home Depot. It was funny. They ended up calling it "Homer" and trained him to respond to "Homer" instead but his paperwork said "Home Depot".

My ex hated her dog's name so she picked a new one after graduation and retrained her dog to respond to the new name instead.

I briefly considered renaming my dog "What" but decided it wouldn't be funny anymore after a while...

I only share my dog's real name with a select few people because she is trained to obey and respond to her name. Can you imagine if all 1000+ kids at my school knew her name? They'd all be trying to call her out of the room or over for pets during lunchtime. Instead, I use a different name for her. All the kids now scream "Fido! Come here Fido!" :giggle: :giggle: :giggle: She just ignores them.

-Aquaman
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I don't blame you for posting her name in a public forum. It didn't occur to me that your students would use it to tease your dog.

Home Depot?!?!? Okkkkkaaaayyyy....
 
I would name a hearing dog "Reject". Why?

The dog failed to graduate a hearing dog program so the dog was rejected.:giggle:
 
I'm sorry, I have to hijack this thread for a second to say AWESOME PICTURES.
 
I don't like when people get a hearing dog just to take advantage of the system so they can bring their dogs to the places that do not allow dogs or residence that don't allow large size dogs. I think that's absurb. I don't need a hearing dog because it's not really neccessary since I wear hearing aids. I can understand there's dog for the blind or disabled, but hearing dogs...oh please.
 
VamPyroX asks a very good question, and Sequoias brings up a valid point of view.

While I cannot answer for Woofy, I'll answer for myself. I dislike, and do not wear hearing aids. They do not work well for myself. I also wouldn't wear them to bed. So why don't I just get a flashing doorbell/knocker system? I do not own my own home, and do not want to deal with installing such a system in every room of a rental, only to deal with the uninstallation and repairs afterwards. I also travel often, and go camping. I do not want to carry one of those portable systems as I like to minimize my weight (Dog carries her own food, etc) and such an system wouldn't work in a tent anyways. There is also a shortage of subs at my school - sometimes during my prep period I cover for other teachers at a moment's notice with no time to set up such devices.

I also probably should add that generally speaking, I do not abuse the "public service" access laws. I don't bring her places just for the hell of it. If it's a bad location for her (crowded places such as a baseball game, night club, short restaurant visit, etc) I will leave her behind out of consideration for her and others.

Not everybody is the same, however. I have scolded a few people for abusing the system and will continue to do so. There was this mixed mutt that attacked mine at a university. Twice. At the same university, there was a toy dog that was allowed to run around the classroom off leash during class time. It would run around bothering people for scraps of food. It even took a leak in the middle of the room once. Some people should NOT have service dogs. CCI screens their applicants much better than other agencies from what I understand and have denied a number of people dogs.

-Aquaman
 
Hello all,

I was joking that I just wanted a dog. :cool:

A regular dog and a hearing dog are two different kinds of dogs. (Depending on the hearing dog where it was trained.) I do know that. There is a different set of responsibilities. :deal:

My ex used to have a hearing dog and we lived together. That dog was trained at SPCA in San Francisco. It was really nice to have a hearing dog that watches out for you. Like Aquaman said, dogs from SPCA SF is a hit and miss situation because those dogs were adopted from animal shelters with questionable backgrounds. In my case, it was a great HIT. :thumb:

He was able to recognize my sign name. Whenever, my ex would call for me, the dog would tap on me and tell me that my ex needed me. He was able to do various commands for instance:

Cooking timer
Doorbells/ knocking
Car alarms
Sirens (he howls when there is a siren) It was cute now when I think about it.
Fire alarms (helpful when I am sleeping
Recognizing your sign names.
If something breaks, he will let me know. For example, glass falling off the counter and crashing on the floor. (I don’t think he was trained to do that.)
Will pee/ poop when told to.
Will let me know that he needs to go to the potty.

And on top of all that, companionship and love with/from the dog.

I grew up with animals all my life. I love animals. I detest people harming animals. :pissed: But, that’s beside the point.

I have had dogs during my childhood life. The thing is this hearing dog was aware that I am Deaf. Other dogs that I grew up with didn’t have a full understanding that I am Deaf. I felt that I was able to connect better with that hearing dog. I have had wonderful memories with him because I was able to take him with me everywhere legally.

I am very sure that I will get that connection from a well trained hearing dog, hopefully from CCI. The dog will make my life a lot easier and don’t need to rely on mechanical gadgets.

Recently, I went on this trip hosted for deaf people at Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz. An older couple had a mutt from SPCA SF. It was walking around all the time. Several people were getting tangled in its leach. I felt that it wasn’t trained.

Yes. I have seen some deaf people “train” their dogs to become hearing dogs and “certify” them as hearing dogs. Then, demand that they do have rights to take their “hearing” dogs everywhere. That causes problems with the hearing population. It undermines the hard work and credibilty of the hearing dog programs and hearing dog handlers overall.

That is why....I want a hearing dog!!!! :cool2:
 
In the long run, a hearing dog is more expensive than having deaf equipment. You need to give them lots of exercise, food, vet visits, etc.

I only need a dog as a pet. ;)
 
sequoias said:
In the long run, a hearing dog is more expensive than having deaf equipment. You need to give them lots of exercise, food, vet visits, etc.

I only need a dog as a pet. ;)
Click to expand...

Yes... That may be the case regarding money. However, food and vet bills are tax deductible because it is a service dog.

But nothing cannot replace love and companionship from a hearing dog and that it can look out for you.
 
^^I didn't know it's tax deductible for a service dog needs.
 
It is indeed tax deductible, but I never bothered to get into that as it's my understanding that it's not fully deductible. Only a small percentage of it is, and only if you spend enough money on it. Besides our country's broke but that's for an entirely different thread.

-Aquaman
 
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