Perhaps in a future blog entry we will extend the topic of deafness to the animal kingdom. For this entry, we wanted to highlight what the animal kingdom does for the Deaf. As you may have guessed, there are indeed service dogs for the Deaf. Paws with a Cause is one of the organizations that trains these special canines. There is also a British Organization, Hearing Dogs for Deaf People. A big part of what these dogs do is to act as an alert system for the Deaf person. These animals can learn to give alerts when someone is at the door, the phone is ringing or other important noises enter the environment. In addition to assisting with daily life, these dogs can particularly help with travel. Both the deaf individual and the dog must have special certification verifying their training as an assistance dog to allow them to enter establishments that normally would not permit animals. So just think! Now not only can you communicate with a Deaf person if you learn American Sign Language (ASL), but you may also run into some very unique and wonderful dogs too!