We recently invited Nicola and her hearing dog, Dolly, to stay at Lakeview Manor. Last year, we chose Hearing Dogs for Deaf People as our charity and this was a great opportunity to catch up with Nicola and find out about how important the charity has been to her, to talk about those amazing dogs and, of course, to meet Dolly.
Nicola’s story
Nicola is profoundly deaf in her right ear and severely deaf in her left, and she wears two hearing aids. She has Otosclerosis, which is an hereditary condition that her father also lives with. Nicola started noticing her hearing was deteriorating when she was around 13 year old, which is typical for Otosclerosis. This was 30 years ago and she has had hearing tests every two years since then. Unfortunately, her hearing has deteriorated recently to the extent that she felt the need to take further action.
Nicola told us, “I will eventually learn sign language, but first I am learning to lip read. One of the first things I did was to find out about hearing dogs and I’m so glad I did.”
Training begins when the puppies are 8-12 weeks old. For their first 12-18 months they are looked after by volunteers who expose them to different stimuli, such parks, trains, shops and buses – all the normal day-to-day activities their owners will be doing with them. Once they pass their basic training and can respond reliably to commands, they begin their specialist hearing training.
Nicola explained how it works, “Dolly was trained to hear a squeaker and react by nudging her trainer to show she’s heard the squeaker. This means, now she’s with me, she can act in the same way, for instance, if the doorbell rings.”
The hearing and sound training happens at ‘big school’ and is called bed and breakfast because the dog stays with their volunteer for bed and breakfast and goes to ‘big school’ during the day for training. They pass Puppy 1 Star, 2 Star and 3 Star training levels and they must learn everything covered by each star before they can move onto the next.
A proud Nicola told us, “Dolly’s volunteer said that she was the best of her litter and always completed each task before the others.”
How Dolly and Nicola met
When Dolly’s training was complete, she was ready to meet Nicola, but things did not run quite as smoothly as they should have done, as Nicola explains,
“I received a phone call in March 2020 to say I’d been matched to a dog but then Covid happened and we couldn’t meet. Instead, I had lots of Zoom calls with the volunteer and Dolly and learnt pretty much everything about Dolly. She finally came to stay in June 2020. I remember it clearly; I sat on the patio with some chicken in my hand and Dolly came running over. It was such a moving experience; I was in tears as I had waited 18 months before I was matched with a dog.”
The chicken sealed the deal. “After that, I realised I needed to be the person who gave her the treats, more than my husband and daughter, and now she is a mummy’s girl through and through.” laughed Nicola.
Dolly is trained to alert Nicola to various sounds, such as the doorbell. She nudges Nicola, who responds with “what is it?” with her hands up. Dolly takes her to the sound that she has heard. With the smoke alarm, she will nudge Nicola and drop to the floor. This is so Nicola knows it is an emergency. And when the alarm clock sounds in the morning, she will jump on top of Nicola!
Out and about, Dolly’s presence tells people that Nicola is deaf so it helps people understand and adapt to her needs. Nicola also encourages Dolly to respond well to petting even when she is in work mode.
Dolly is four years old now, a beautiful black and white cocker spaniel. She’ll retire around the age of 12, when Nicola will have the option to keep her as a normal family pet. If Nicola still needs a hearing dog at that stage, she’ll go through the same process as before to find a ‘successor’ dog to take over from Dolly.
We couldn’t let Nicola and Dolly go without finding out what they thought of Lakeview Manor and their pet friendly lodge. And we couldn’t have asked for a better response,
“This is the first time in 15 years I have felt fully comfortable bringing a dog on holiday and that’s because of how pet friendly it is here. More than anything I want to share that feeling. It’s so important because of course, everybody’s dog is part of the family, whether they are a hearing dog or not.”
Nicola stayed from 2 December to 5 December 2022 and we’re delighted to hear that she loved her lodge and says it’s the first holiday she’s been on where everything was to such a high standard she hasn’t had to ask for anything.
Find out more about our work with Hearing Dogs for Deaf People and how you can contribute when you book your pet friendly holiday at Lakeview Manor.
