Hearing Dogs
Hearing Dog Friendly Tesco Receives Recognition
Supermarket giant Tesco has been named a runner-up for the Hearing Dog Friendly Award 2004, which was announced by the charity, Hearing Dogs for Deaf People.
This is the second year of the Hearing Dog Friendly Award which was launched to recognise those towns and service providers who make a real effort to make deaf people and their hearing dogs welcome. The winner of the award in 2003 was the town of Selby in North Yorkshire. There was a fantastic response this year from various towns, cities and service providers all making an effort to prove that they welcomed hearing dogs, and ensuring that local media got involved in the various publicity campaigns. Many recipients of hearing dogs wrote to the Charity, putting forward their own nominations explaining just how much they were welcomed in their own localities, shops and restaurants.
Tesco have been hearing dog friendly for some time, ever since the Charity opened their two training centres in Cliffe in North Yorkshire and in Saunderton near Princes Risborough in Buckinghamshire. Hearing dog puppies being socialised, and young hearing dogs in training have been taken into the Tesco store local to both centres. Trainers and socialisers alike have always reported that staff and management at both stores have been helpful, courteous and above all interested in the work of hearing dogs, and have gladly welcomed the new recruits onto their premises. This positive attitude has made an enormous contribution to the training programme for hearing dogs, allowing trainers and socialisers to assess the dogs’ behaviour in busy food stores.
This invaluable access to this environment is extended to the deaf recipients who stay on site for a week training with their new dog. Again it gives them the opportunity to work with their dog and trainer in a relatively controlled environment, which will stand them in good stead when they take their new hearing dog into their own supermarkets at home.
One such lady is Pauline Jennings, who has hearing dog Jive. Pauline lives in Twickenham and she wrote to Hearing Dogs nominating her local Tesco store for the award. She explains why, “I wanted to thank all the staff at Tesco in Twickenham as they are really good to me and Jive. They are a great help and look after me when I come in with Jive. One lady called Jean is particularly helpful, and Jive really likes her because she is so kind and very friendly.”
Although competition for the award was stiff and everyone had fun proving how hearing dog friendly they were, there is a very serious side to the competition too. Hearing Dogs receives daily many calls from recipients of hearing dogs who have been either refused entry to a public place or asked to leave because of their hearing dog. With the advent of the Disability Discrimination Act this is not acceptable practice, and a publican recently lost a court case brought by the Disability Rights Commission for ejecting a deaf lady with a hearing dog from his establishment. “It can be very embarrassing and humiliating when someone with a hearing dog is refused access,” says Jenny Moir, the Charity’s Head of PR. “So we wanted to say thank you to those who make life easier for our recipients and their dogs in the hope that more people would be aware of the need for access without having to preach to them.”
Other towns, cities and service providers now have a year to follow in the footsteps of Tesco before the presentation of the Hearing Dog Friendly Award 2005.
www.hearing-dogs.co.uk
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