A Plantation woman received a specially trained ‘hearing’ dog that alerts her to ringing phones, alarms and even someone calling her name.

When Cristina Saint-Blancard went to sleep one sweltering South Florida night, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

But about 2 a.m., she woke up, struggling to catch her breath.

Moments later, Saint-Blancard wasn’t breathing at all.

Her trusted canine, Tatiana II, sprung into action and alerted her family that something was wrong.

Saint-Blancard’s mother, Teresa, found her daughter unresponsive after a severe asthma attack, but was able to call the paramedics and get help in time.

“Tatiana does things she’s not even trained to do,” said Saint-Blancard, 27, of Plantation. “Paramedics said she saved my life.”

Read full story:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/04/2567188/specially-trained-canine-is-ears.html#storylink=cpy

- Thanks to the Miami Herald and CB

By Victoria Allen, The Daily Record, Scotland, 5/26/10

Meet Nemo – a pooch who can’t get enough of the dog and bone.

The poodle-terrier cross is a hearing dog, who acts as his deaf owner Irene Henderson’s ears.

But as well as barking if the doorbell or the alarm clock goes off, the clever dog now tells Irene when she receives a text message on her mobile. He is now thought to be the first hearing dog in Scotland to have worked out how to do it.

Irene, 71, who went deaf in her thirties, said: “Nemo was born to be a hearing dog and he’s changed my life. But I never expected him to start doing things he’d never even been trained to do.”

“He’s determined to help me in every way. He never misses a text. I don’t know if it’s because he’s extra clever or just plain nosy.”

Irene, from Portobello, Edinburgh, has hereditary deafness which forced her to give up her job in an office for care work because she could no longer hear phone calls. Within a decade, she was deaf without a hearing aid in each ear.

The gran-of-two said: “Going deaf changed everything, I became totally withdrawn because I couldn’t join in with conversations any more.

“I spent three years learning to lipread but people didn’t know I was deaf so it looked like I was staring at them.  I shied away from people because I was embarrassed I couldn’t communicate.

My life was miserable.”

She contacted Hearing Dogs For Deaf People and was sent a picture of Nemo, who was then just a puppy. After training, he came to live with Irene and her partner, Bill Lindsay.

Now four, Nemo is able to alert Irene to the telephone, alarm clock and doorbell by running over and placing his paws in her lap. She asks him, “What is it?” and he leads her to the source of the noise.

Irene receives dozens of texts a day and Nemo has adapted his training to let her know when one arrives. He jumps into her lap, leads her to her phone – and gets a treat as a reward.

Irene said: “Texts are far more important for me than for a hearing person. It’s wonderful to know when they’re coming through. Because of Nemo, I can keep in touch and I look forward to every day.”

Ian Finney, of Hearing Dogs For Deaf People, said: “He’s clearly a very clever dog indeed.”

Thanks to Bob MacPherson and NVRC, Fairfax

Tom the Cat Is Betty’s Ears

Skeezix the Cat

68-year-old Betty Macaluso doesn’t wake to the sound of an alarm clock. Like many of us, she’s awakened by a hungry cat or two, who gently knead her arm when it’s time for their breakfast. Unlike many of us, she wouldn’t be able to hear the alarm clock even if it did ring; she’s deaf, and her cats are her ears.

She adopted Tom 2 (an orange and white tabby) and Tiger (a heavier gray and black tabby), both now about a year old, from PetSmart in Lawrenceville, Georgia, when they were 12 weeks old.

“They know I can’t hear,” Macaluso, 68, said through a sign language interpreter. “They hear for me.”

She remembers one morning when Tom 2 stood on her stomach, gazing intently at the ceiling above her bed. Over the course of the following week, he continues to stare at the same spot. She grabbed a flashlight and took a closer look, discovering a thin, round line of clay on her ceiling. She immediately called a pest control company. Tom 2 had spotted termites.

Macaluso said the exterminator was puzzled as to how she found termites in the wall, since she’s deaf and could not hear them. “I smiled and pointed to my Tom 2.”

He told her she was lucky to have a cat like Tom 2; she could have lost her home if he hadn’t detected the termites.

Tom 2 and Tiger also notice the flashing lights that signal the doorbell or video phone is ringing and alert their owner.

Since Macaluso can’t hear her cats when they meow, the two have already learned to paw at her leg to get her attention.

Macaluso’s parents were also deaf, and she grew up in a home with cats. She recalled one evening when she was sitting down with her mother on the swing on their porch, and their family cat began acting very strangely. They couldn’t figure out why.

About that time, the cat jumped a rattlesnake that was five feet from Macaluso and her mother, keeping them out of harm’s way.

“I will never … live without two cats because they always helped me by (hearing what I cannot).”

Source:

http://blogs.catster.com/the-cats-meow-a-cat-and-kitten-blog/tom-the-cat-is-bettys-ears/2009/07/11/