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Lend Me an Ear:The Temperament, Selection, and Training of the Hearing Ear Dog

If there were ever a paradigmatic situation illustrating how art triumphs over science, it would be the hearing dog selection process. Author Martha Hoffman celebrates this messy, hard to codify series of events and circumstances in Lend Me an Ear, by describing the traits of the ideal hearing dog, while acknowledging that such perfection doesn't exist in a single animal.

Hoffman has been a trainer in the San Francisco SPCA Hearing Dog Program since 1989, and has worked with hundreds of dogs exhibiting a wide range of potential for hearing dog work. In Lend Me an Ear, she shares her criteria for evaluating necessary signal dog characteristics in shelter dogs, including confidence, curiosity, sound reactivity, absence of aggression, and motivation to food rewards.

She also provides "blueprints" of groups of dogs (e.g., scent hounds, terriers, and retrievers), with their general attributes alongside the three key roles of a hearing dog--companionship, public access, and sound alerting--to inform readers about how they can expect broad categories of dogs to perform in hearing dog roles.

Most of Lend Me an Ear is written for trainers. Several chapters on hearing dog theory and performing tests on prospective hearing dogs at shelters contain more information than most people interested in adopting a hearing dog need to know--such as establishing a satisfactory working relationship with a particular shelter--but the introductory material and the sections on training for specific sounds are approachable and useful for hearing dog guardians.

Hoffman gives specific, easy to understand instructions for training a core of signals, such as a smoke alarm and a timer, with extra advice on subjects ranging from frequent training mistakes to various types of training rewards. Real-life anecdotes and photographs of San Francisco SPCA Hearing Dog recipients working with their dogs allow readers to get a good sense of what is involved in life with a canine partner.

Throughout the text, Hoffman emphasizes the difficulty in reducing hearing dog selection to a fixed set of rules based upon often brief observations. Decisions are made by also relying on substantial experience and gut-level responses. She writes, "Objectivity is needed to avoid slipping into fantasy, and subjectivity is needed to see beyond superficial test results." An additional wrinkle Hoffman irons out is the suitability of the hearing dog/human match; one dog may be ideal for one program applicant and entirely unsuitable for another because of human differences in lifestyle, experience with dogs, and signaling needs.

As awareness of hearing dogs increases among people who can benefit from these remarkable service animals, demand for them will also likely grow. Hoffman's sage guidance is and will remain a valuable reference for helping to make harmonious partnerships between compatible canine and human lives.

From Doral Publishing. About $21.95 new; ISBN 0-944875-56-4; 1999.

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Note: This review was written in September, 2006. The San Francisco SPCA Hearing Dog Program closed in April, 2008.