🐶 The Australian Dog Of The Year Has Been Announced!

Elle - a deaf rescue dog who uses sign language to support anxious children in the classroom - has just been crowned Australian Dog of the Year for 2025!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jersey and Amanda jam Nation. Australian of the Year was
announced of course over the Australia Day Long weekend. A
wonderful choice, Nil Danaher. He has raised over one hundred
million dollars for Modern neur own Disease EXAFL great and
now this incredible campaigner for modern neur own disease which
he has a Senior Australian of the Year. I saw
a story on this wonderful man. Brother Thomas Oliver Pickett,

(00:22):
a Senior Australian of the Year. He has designed wheelchairs
that are adjustable as the child grows and more than
sixty thousand of these custom built wheelchairs, built in New
South Wales have been gifted to children in eighty countries
around the world. We've had a Young Australian of the Year,
a scientist, doctor Katrina Ruck. She's Indigenous and she is
working on new materials and sustainable methods to address contaminants

(00:44):
in water, hoping that this will help Indigenous communities. And
the Australia's Local Hero for twenty twenty five Vanessa Brettel
and Hanna Costello. They've got a business cafe called stepping Stone,
a gateway for women from migrant and refugee backgrounds to
get a job who would otherwise not be employed. But
did you know there's also an Australian Dog of the Year.

(01:07):
Hasn't gone to my dog funnily enough, which may I say,
did a dreadful pooh on the carpet yesterday because a
certain one of our producers fed my dog cheese and
biscuits at nauseum when we're away on the weekend. The
dog's guts finally gave up. Well. The Australian of the
Year dog is a dog called El who's a deaf

(01:28):
rescue dog who uses sign language to support anxious children
in the classroom. When I first read this, I thought,
how does a dog do sign language? What happens is
the children are taught to do signs for the dog,
and the dog will respond to them when it sees
the signs, and so the kids use this as a
kind of as therapy, but also as a reward for

(01:50):
doing well in the classroom. They get to play with
the dog and practice their sign language, etc. Practice the
signs that the dog knows. So this is a dog
that's helping children navigate anxiety, tough days and behavioral, behavioral
challenges they have at school. So this fabulous deaf dog
is a therapy dog. That's a great dog. Great dog.
What if it starts to lick itself in the classrooms,

(02:11):
Well you got expelled. What sort of message is that?
Who says that? Who looks at it in a therapy
dog and says, what sort of message is that that
licks itself? Didn't need to didn't need a date from
the school formal neither did you