# What 318 Veterinary Clinics Told Us About Hearing Health — And What They Did Not Know They Were Saying
*By Janet Marlow, M.A., Certified Sound Behaviorist | Founder and CEO, Pet Acoustics*
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Between August 2023 and April 2026, 318 veterinary clinics across 48 US states requested the Pet Acoustics+ free hearing screening kit for their practice. Every single one was fulfilled and shipped.
That number — 318 clinics, 48 states, all requesting a tool for something they had never been able to test before — tells one kind of story. But the data behind those requests tells a more important one.
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## The Question We Asked
When clinics placed their request, we asked one straightforward question: what do you currently use to assess your patients' hearing?
The answers were a window into a gap that most of the profession has quietly lived with for years.
**256 of 318 clinics — over 80% — reported no hearing assessment product or protocol in place at all.**
Their answers ranged from candid to quietly revealing:
*"I don't have a product I use to test hearing in pets."* — Dr. William King, Frankfort Animal Clinic, KY
*"We do not currently have any testing options available."* — Hillary Cook, Animal Wellness Center
*"No comparable product in house."* — Erin Sutton, Shiloh Veterinary Hospital
*"We have not had need until now to use one."* — Alexsey Dobberstine, Humane Society of Dallas County
That last response is the one that stays with us. **We have not had need until now.** Not because hearing loss in their patients was rare. As our broader dataset of 10,615 screenings shows, 46.5% of dogs and cats have some degree of hearing impairment. The need was always there. What was missing was the tool — and the awareness that the tool was needed.
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## What Clinics Were Using Instead
The remaining clinics described their current method. The most common responses:
- **A loud clap** — hands clapped sharply near the animal's head, watching for a flinch
- **Dropping a heavy object** — a book, a stainless steel bowl, something that makes impact noise
- **Visual startle test** — snapping fingers outside the visual field
*"I usually just clap my hands loudly to see if a pet hears it, or drop a heavy book."* — Dr. Erin P. Schulz, At Your Door Mobile Veterinary Care
*"Im guessing it works better than clapping."* — Ivy Gantt, Moon Veterinary Clinic
Only **4 clinics** mentioned BAER testing — the gold standard audiological assessment that requires specialist referral, specialized equipment, and in many cases sedation. BAER is excellent for confirming deafness. It is not a screening tool for the wellness visit. It was never designed to be.
The picture that emerges is straightforward: the most technologically sophisticated profession in pet care has been assessing one of the five primary senses with a hand clap.
This is not a criticism of veterinary practice. It is a description of a gap that existed because no accessible, validated alternative existed. Until now, there was nothing to use instead.
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## What the Clinics Said When They Arrived
The enthusiasm in the requests was striking. Clinics were not filling out a routine form. They were responding to something they had been waiting for.
*"We are excited to try this product in our office for patients with suspected hearing loss."* — Lauren Newman, Sheltons Veterinary Hospital, NC
*"We have several clients a year who are interested in evaluating their pets' hearing. I think this would be a great way to evaluate it coupled with the in-clinic exam."* — Dr. Jaimie Wisnowski, Preiser Animal Hospital
*"Can't wait to try it out and see results in just one minute!"* — Dr. Carla Bender, Thousand Island Animal Hospital
*"Very cool. I am a hospice veterinarian and would love to see something like this used more as I constantly have clients mention their dogs' hearing loss."* — Dr. Tessa Brown, At Peace Home Veterinary Care
*"We have plenty of clients always asking if their pets can hear."* — Dr. Amy O'Malley, Warrenton Animal Clinic
*"I just acquired a deaf dog and this would be a great test for him and to show clients."* — Randall Ruble, Madera Animal Hospital
*"Yes, if it works well, it would be something we recommend to our clients."* — Dr. Robert R. Maza, Companion Animal Hospital
The demand was already there. Owners were already asking. Veterinarians already knew this was a gap — they just had no way to close it.
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## 48 States. Every Practice Type.
The 318 clinics in our network represent the breadth of American veterinary practice:
- **General practices** from every region, from urban hospital groups to single-veterinarian rural clinics
- **Mobile and house-call practices** — 8 clinics whose model requires tools that travel
- **Emergency and specialty hospitals** — 9 referral and specialist centers
- **Shelters and humane societies** — 7 organizations, where hearing screening has direct implications for adoption placement and behavioral assessment
- **Hospice and end-of-life practices** — where hearing loss is among the most common and least-discussed quality-of-life factors
The top states by clinic count — Florida (32), Texas (29), Pennsylvania (18), California (17), North Carolina (16), New York (16), Michigan (15) — mirror the national distribution of veterinary practices. This is not a regional phenomenon. It is national.
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## The Number That Matters Most
Of the 318 clinics, only 4 had any formal audiological testing capability. The rest were working with their hands and their instincts.
Meanwhile, our hearing dataset tells us that among the patients walking through those clinic doors:
- **46.5%** have some degree of hearing impairment
- **28.2%** have significant loss across all frequency bands
- **50.2%** have absent high-frequency response — the earliest and most sensitive marker of age-related decline
- The majority of those animals have **no hearing baseline on record**
The math is uncomfortable. A clinic seeing 20 patients a day is likely seeing 9 or 10 animals with undetected hearing loss — animals whose behavioral presentations, stress responses, and treatment plans may be influenced by a sensory factor that no one has measured.
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## What the Screening Changes
The Pet Acoustics+ hearing screening takes under two minutes. It requires no equipment beyond a smartphone. It tests behavioral response across three frequency bands — low (125 Hz to 1 kHz), mid (1 kHz to 4 kHz), and high (4 kHz to 16+ kHz) — and generates a structured clinical PDF the veterinarian can enter into the patient record.
What it creates, for the first time, is a **baseline**.
A baseline changes everything about what happens next. It gives the veterinarian a comparison point for every future visit. It gives the owner language for what they have been observing. It gives the behavioral picture context — when a dog stops responding to commands or a cat begins startling at touch, the veterinarian can ask not only "what has changed behaviorally?" but "what has changed neurologically or sensorially?"
It also changes the conversation around hearing for good. Once a baseline exists, hearing becomes a variable — something tracked over time, something included in the longitudinal health record, something that informs decisions about environment, training, medication, and quality of life.
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## The Profession Is Ready
The 318 clinics in our network did not need to be convinced that hearing health mattered. They requested the tool because they already knew their patients needed it and their clients were asking for it.
What they needed was something practical. Something that fit into a wellness visit. Something that did not require a referral, a specialist, or a sedated patient.
*"Clients will love it."* — Sara Fletcher, Greensboro Mobile Veterinary Housecalls
*"Interested in how this test will benefit our patients."* — Dr. Erin Downard, Country Brook Animal Hospital
*"This will be something very interesting to try."* — Janet Henkel, Tillamook Veterinary Hospital, OR
The interest is there. The need is documented. The gap between what is currently assessed at a wellness visit and what could be assessed — with a free, two-minute smartphone tool — is one that the profession is ready to close.
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## For Veterinary Professionals
The Pet Acoustics+ hearing screening is free to download and free to use. It can be integrated into any wellness visit workflow without additional equipment, staff training, or scheduling time.
To request a free sample kit for your practice or to learn more about integrating hearing screening into your wellness protocol, visit **petacoustics.com** or contact us directly at janetmarlow@petacoustics.com.
Your patients' owners are already asking whether their pets can hear. Now there is an answer you can give them.
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*Janet Marlow, M.A., is a Certified Sound Behaviorist, Founder and CEO of Pet Acoustics Inc., and the developer of the world's first behavioral digital hearing screening for companion animals. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed international journals and is endorsed by the Fear Free veterinary initiative.*
