Thanks for the replies. Common sense would suggest this auditory exclusion as a myth. It would be interesting to know about the foam stuff though.

Howard

Humans generally experience auditory suppression, tunnel vision and time/sequence inaccuracies when under extreme duress (ie, a police officer that has had a traffic stop go bad and is now fighting for his life, etc.) This is well documented and occurs as a result of the massive amount of arenaline being dumped into the system during the "fight or flight" engagement, among other reasons. In humans, this CAN be over come (to a large degree, actually) with a LOT of experience and training in realistic scenarios.

To me, the question would be: does a police work dog experience the same "adrenaline dump" during a life or death engagement as a person does? If not, then the dog probably will not experience many of the same things that humans do under stress (auditory suppression, tunnel vision, etc.) If it DOES experience adrenaline dump, then it may very well experience the same things we do in those situations. Even if it does experience adrenaline dump, however, would the large amount of training the dog receives on a regular basis minimize or even negate those autotomic responses, as it can in humans?

Finally, all things being equal (let's say both humans and dogs experience those physiological conditions under stress), that same stress level does NOT occur during average training. That is one reason why we have to wear hearing protection during training. It stands to reason a dog would have to also.

Thoughts?

Scott wrote;

"Finally, all things being equal (let's say both humans and dogs experience those physiological conditions under stress), that same stress level does NOT occur during average training. That is one reason why we have to wear hearing protection during training. It stands to reason a dog would have to also. "



Scott does Auditory Exclusion actually protect you from hearing damage during extremely stressfull fight or flight situations ?

My guess is from my experiance with K9's that they go through similiar physiological reactions in a fight or flight situation . Auditory Exclusion may be one of them . I just don't think it prevents damage to the dogs' or humans' hearing just because our brains supressed that loud noise .

I guess I compare it to the bodies reaction to injury during a fight or flight situation . Your brain supresses the pain but it doesn't prevent the actual injury . After the event is over you will eventually feel the pain and the damage is there.

I sure wouldn't bet the farm on my opinion on this subject though .

I will say this as it relates to training a K9 around gunfire . I think you should mix it up . Allow the K9 ear protection during certain training situations and in others work without it . If you are working gunfire tolerance it does no good to have hearing protection in the dog's ears . But if you're doing repetitive scenarios with say a SWAT team it may be a good idea . It depends on what you are trying to accomplish in your training .

To me some unprotected or limited exposure to gunfire is necessary risk . Like Lou I don't think we should be on the firing line all the time with our dog exposed (unprotected) to gunfire . But I also think we have to do it sometimes in training scenerios or in initial training for gunfire tolerance . We have to balance protecting the great tool(K9) we have to prolong it's use and effectiveness with exposing it to some degree of potential harm to be prepared for those life or death situations on the streets . Exposure to gunfire is one of those neccessary evils . JMO.

I try not to put my dog through too much gunfire. As long as the dog is not gunfire aggressive I really can’t see much reason in exposing the dog to possible hearing damage.

When we do have to work gunfire scenarios at training we will generally stick to a .22 blank gun. The dogs that are accustomed to the .22 blanks generally don’t display any different behavior when they hear live .40 Cal. rounds.

Howard stated;
" It would be interesting to know about the foam stuff though. "

I finally found out what it was . He stated it was a large block of weather stripping material that he found at a hardware store . He cut it into big enough pieces to fit in the dogs ears .

Sorry , he couldn't remember the name of it or give me anymore specifics than that .

Thanks <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />