For people with hearing impairments in Japan, help can come on four paws -- but awareness and access remain limited.Assistance dogs support people with disabilities in living independently and participating in society across the country. While guide dogs are widely recognized, hearing dogs remain rare, with only about 50 in service nationwide.Trained to distinguish essential sounds and alert users with a tap of their front paws, they are seen as meeting significant unmet demand. Yet some hesitate to use them, and cases of being refused entry to stores persist. Many hurdles remain before the…READ FULL ARTICLE
