Canine Hearing Management

Abstract

The United States military employs multipurpose canines as force multipliers. A newly developed baseline audiology program applicable to noise effects on the hearing threshold for these dogs has just been developed by the University of Cincinnati FETCHLAB using brainstem auditory evoked potentials to detect estimated threshold shifts in this population. Dogs that are routinely deployed are subject to consistent exposure to noise in the field. Few investigations have focused on the effects of transport noise on the auditory system in multipurpose dogs. The consequence of these dogs having a significant hearing threshold shift is a failure of the dog to properly respond to voice commands and to miss critical acoustic cues while on target. This chapter specifically discusses the baseline protocol for audiological testing of special operations’ multipurpose canines related to helicopter transport.