Juliet England: Why Jovi the hearing dog is in a class of his own

There’s nothing new about teaching assistants – but not many of them have four legs and fur.

Yet for the past year or so, Jovi, a cocker spaniel who’s two and a half, has been working alongside Year 4 form tutor Graham Sage in the classroom at all-boys Moulsford prep school near Wallingford, Oxfordshire, where Sage teaches English and Maths, Geography and History and PE.

Sage started to lose his hearing in his mid-teens, when he went to the GP with severe attacks of vertigo and tinnitus in his right ear. Following a visit to an ENT clinic, he was diagnosed with likely Ménière’s disease.

The 29-year-old explains: “I now have moderate loss in my left ear and a severe to profound loss in my right ear, so things have got progressively worse over the years. Like most people with a hearing loss, I rely a lot on lip-reading as well as things like texting and email to communicate where face-to-face contact isn’t possible, rather than the phone.

“I do wear hearing aids all day at work so I can pick up as much of what the boys are saying as possible. However, the aids do tend to pick up everything, so that any background noise is also amplified, reducing my ability to catch what the person is trying to say.“

Sage says that Jovi reduces feelings of anxiety and isolation by alerting him to particular sounds, as he is trained to do. But there is the added advantage of providing deaf awareness to everyone who dog and owner come into contact with.

“Having him in the classroom, acting as my little assistant, is amazing. It means I can go about my working life as a teacher without having to worry about not hearing what someone says, or evacuating in an emergency.

“Jovi has also heightened the sense of community at the school – to the extent that we decided to take Hearing Dogs for Deaf People as our charity last year, and were able to raise more than £20,000 for them.

“I always describe Jovi as a little rock star. His temperament is laid-back yet inquisitive, and he absolutely loves any form of attention and affection.”

Sage adds that if a fire alarm went off in a lesson, a pupil could always alert him. But now Jovi can do this if he is in a room at school by himself.

Equally, if a boy can’t get the teacher’s attention, he is always happy for them to leave their seats to speak to him.

“But they can now use Jovi to come and fetch me as well.”

The spaniel can further help by alerting his owner to sounds including the school bell or the timer during timed exercises.

Jovi also comes into his own outside school, alerting Sage to sounds from the doorbell to smoke alarm and alarm clock plus the noises from appliances like the microwave and cooker timers.

“His presence at home also makes me feel more comfortable and less worried about break-ins as I know he’ll wake up, while in public he gives those around me awareness that I am deaf by highlighting an invisible issue. People are always coming up to me and asking me about Jovi. Finally, it also means my wife doesn’t struggle to get my attention.”

(Sage’s wife of three years Anna, also 29, is hearing and works as a physiotherapist in Oxford.)

“He also has more subtle alerts if we’re out on a walk, for example if a bus or emergency vehicle is about to pass us on the pavement or something is happening up ahead, his naturally inquisitive nature means he will look or move in that direction, which can also be very useful.”

A Sport and Exercise Science graduate from Oxford Brookes University, Sage first had the chance to work with children of primary school age as a student. Having enjoyed the chance the course gave him to coach rugby, he completed a PGCE at Gloucester University. He has been at Moulsford for thee years, having previously taught at a school in the Oxford area.

Now living near the school, with his wife, Sage is also involved in deaf rugby.

“I played touch rugby with a friend who also played for Wales Deaf Rugby. When I told him I was losing my hearing, he encouraged me to get in touch with the coach at English Deaf Rugby Union (ERDU).

“I went to an open training session in 2011 and debuted vs. Wales (and played against my friend!) a couple of months later in when we beat them for the first time in seven years, and I was man of the match.

“I was then offered the captaincy for the next international, but had to stop playing for a while in 2017 following several injuries, and became assistant backs coach. After the 2016-17 season, I was offered the post of backs coach/assistant team coach, which I love doing.

“I’m now back on the pitch, fully recovered and doing what I love, with Anna and Jovi on the touchline giving me support.”

He thinks he may not be the only deaf teacher to work with a dog.

“I’ve had a few teachers contact me saying they’re going to apply or are on the waiting list to get a dog thanks to the recent media coverage about Jovi.”

However, he may well be the only teacher with a hearing dog who has his own Instagram account – @jovihearingdog