As Mary Kenealy stood with her Hearing Dog for Deaf People under the departures board at Glasgow’s Central Station, two excited women whom she’d never met came running towards her.
Explaining that they were enthusiastic supporters of the charity named on the dog’s trademark burgundy jacket, the two sisters from Motherwell admired and stroked the glossy, black coat of Mary’s Cocker Spaniel, Jenson, and likened him to the Hearing Dog puppy they’d fostered while he’d been in training three years previously.
Mary and husband Sam missed three trains while they enjoyed the sisters’ stories about a carefree holiday in Cornwall with the adorable Hearing Dog puppy, how he had run free on the beach and bounced in the waves, and how much they’d loved him.
His name had been Jenson. It was the same dog.
That is just one of the episodes in the two-and-a-half-year journey Mary has shared with her Hearing Dog that prove to her that she and he were meant to be.
Mary was aged just seven when she contracted both measles and rubella – the consequence of which was permanent hearing loss.
After her first mastoid operation, which involves drilling a hole in the mastoid bone and removing infected air cells, she spent four months in hospital.
She was given a cumbersome, 1950s box hearing aid which she wore around her neck – an albatross and a label for all to see.
“I have never told a lot of people that I am deaf,” Mary told Lanarkshire Live.
“One of the things I was really worried about was advertising the fact. I always tried to hide it over the years for fear of bullying.”
Lengthy hospital stays, recurring ear infections and numerous surgical procedures in a bid to restore some hearing, became commonplace throughout Mary’s childhood.
Having largely been educated on a ward in reading and English literature, in which she excelled, Mary returned to school to find her classmates reciting the seven-times table.
“That was when the panic set in. I just didn’t know what was happening,” she remembers. “Then, I got to secondary school, and it was algebra – and I didn’t have a clue.”
After decades of surgery, Mary was in her 30s before a consultant told her that her hearing could never be restored – and the best she could hope for was advances in hearing aid technology.
Following the birth of her two sons, social worker Mary returned to her job, working with children who had disabilities, and young people and families who had lost their way.
Pet dogs were always a part of the Kenealy family – first there was Suzie, who lived to the grand old age of 16, then faithful Border Collie Rosie - Mary’s ‘shadow’ - who would accompany her on long-distance runs.
Eighteen months had passed since Rosie’s death before Mary felt ready to reach out to Hearing Dogs for Deaf People and join its waiting list.
She and Sam were enjoying a break in Kames on the Argyll coast when Mary received a call from the charity to plan an introduction to a one-year-old dog named Jenson.
“As soon as I saw him, I knew I was not going to let him go,” said Mary, of King’s Park.
“He came in and dropped his head on my knee, and that was it – I was smitten.”
She collected Jenson from the charity’s centre, The Grange, in the heart of the Chiltern Hills, and booked a first class rail ticket to Glasgow Central to ensure she and her new companion would have a stress-free seat to themselves.
“He just went to sleep,” said Mary.
“When I look back, that was actually quite a big deal for him.”
Jenson alerts Mary when there is a caller at the door, or when the smoke alarm activates.
He hadn’t been in her life for long before Mary was made to realise how the training of Hearing Dogs can save the lives of deaf people like her.
While batch-cooking, to avoid the build-up of moisture, Mary had removed her hearing aids. With two pots of soup on the hob and dishes bubbling in the oven, Jenson raced into the kitchen, lay low on the floor to demonstrate danger, and repeatedly nudged her with his nose.
Confused, Mary contacted husband Sam, who told her the piercing noise agitating the dog was that of a smoke alarm – a sound she’d never heard.
“Afterwards, when I thought about it, Jenson never gave up,” said Mary, 70, who lip-reads and gauges the tone of a conversation by studying a person’s facial expressions and body language.
“He thought, ‘she’s not listening to me.’ It was at that point that I realised he will not leave me, ever.”
Sired by a working Spaniel and with an award-winning show dog as a mother, Jenson has the attributes of a highly-alert, intuitive canine whose features alone must surely entitle him a clutch of ’Best in Show’ rosettes.
Through their fleeting encounters with strangers, Mary has seen in Jenson the natural healing powers of a therapy dog.
Her relationship with her Hearing Dog was in its infancy when a man rushed over to them in Glasgow city centre and dropped to his knees in front of Jenson, sobbing.
When the dog licked the tears from his face, the man rose, thanked Mary, and walked on.
Then, there was the woman sitting alone in Buchanan Bus Station. Mary felt Jenson’s lead extend as he wandered towards her and laid his head on her lap. She told Mary she had woken that morning feeling deeply depressed – but somehow, her day seemed much brighter.
The anxiety and uncertainty that night time brings for a deaf person all but dispersed for Mary when her husband was working away, as Jenson would lie close beside her, and she’d wake with his reaction to unusual sounds.
“If I leave the cooker on, or a tap on, he keeps nudging me, looking at me as if to say: ‘I’m telling you something,’” explained Mary, who volunteers as a can collector for Hearing Dogs for Deaf People and sponsors a Spaniel puppy named Tyson.
“And if I don’t ‘get’ him the first time, he will never give up. Like any relationship, we have got past the ‘nicey-nicey’ stage, and he’ll let me know if I haven’t done what I’ve said I’m going to do. He’s very determined.
"If I’ve forgotten to give him ‘chewies', or I don’t throw the ball, he’ll bark at me.
“He’s just the best thing – a great wee dog. He has a very gentle nature. People fall over themselves to talk to him. I know all the shop assistants in Asda, and they come up and ask: ‘How’s my boy?’
“Yes, I’m still deaf and I am still struggling. But he has given me calmness. I didn’t realise I was so anxious until I got him. As time has gone by, we have just settled into each other and he knows me inside out. He has definitely got it.”
* Are you, or do you know, the Motherwell woman who fostered Hearing Dog for Deaf People, Jenson?
Lanarkshire Live would love facilitate a reunion. Please email niki.tennant@reachplc.com if you can help.
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