Dog Gone, but Not Forgotten by Deaf Students

For five years, Dale Hoffman would take Tui, his Great Dane, everywhere--to the beach, to volleyball tournaments, to his office.

As Hoffman maneuvered his Explorer through traffic, Tui (pronounced tuh-whee) would thrust his massive head out the passenger-side window, a mobile gargoyle.

“I’d see parents drive by with their kids in the back seat, and everybody would be pointing and smiling,” Hoffman said. “How cool is it that a large dog with his head out the window could make so many people smile?”

Tui appeared monthly in classes for deaf children at Ventura’s Loma Vista Elementary School.

To say the kids looked forward to his visits would be a mere Chihuahua’s bite of the truth.

The children were small--ranging from 4 to 8 years old--and that made it all the more fun to romp across the playground with a goofy, galloping, gorgeous dog practically the size of a pony.

“They were so excited,” said Nancy Knight, a teacher whose preschoolers came to love Tui, after the initial terror of confronting a 145-pound creature with big, sharp teeth who could stand 6 feet tall on his hind legs. “I’d put pictures of Dale and Tui on the calendar each month, and we’d talk all about them as the day came closer.”

Hoffman had a tough time when he called the school the other day.

His message was as somber as it was simple: Tui died.

He was full of life but he died.

At 46, Hoffman isn’t a parent.

As a volleyball coach and as the organizer of the county’s Friday Night Live programs for teenagers, he has all the kids he wants.

But this dog was something else again.

Hoffman had done some knocking around the South Pacific when he played volleyball on the beach circuit in Australia. That’s how he happened to know the term for “king” in Fijian--a word he applied to the Great Dane puppy he bought in 1995.

But few dogs were ever less regal than Tui.

“It was like having a 4-year-old boy in a 14-year-old’s body,” Hoffman said. “He was rambunctious and playful, and he was just great about kids hanging on to him.”

Walking a Great Dane isn’t like walking some nondescript hound.

“I was thinking about having a T-shirt printed up with the most common questions, sort of like Letterman’s Top 10,” Hoffman said. “ ‘Hey, where’s the saddle? Hey, are you taking him for a walk or is he taking you? How much does he weigh? How much does he eat?’ ”

The kids at Loma Vista asked the same kind of questions, but usually in sign language.

Some didn’t know much about dogs; many parents don’t know how to use sign language and have a difficult time communicating with their deaf and hard-of-hearing kids.

Tui was there as a therapy dog, duly registered with a group called Therapy Dogs International.

Therapy dogs visit nursing homes, hospitals and anywhere else an emotional boost may be provided by an extended paw and a tsunami of slobber.

At the school, a boy who was both deaf and blind was at first leery of this huge animal he could only touch.

But after a little while, he came around, smiling and laughing and wrapping his tiny arms around Tui’s massive body.

“We let him feed Tui a biscuit and when Tui licked his hand, the kid squealed with joy,” Hoffman said. “It was great to see.”

Three weeks ago, Hoffman took Tui to the vet.

Tui was lethargic, and his stomach was bloated.

Uncharacteristically, he plopped down to sleep instead of demanding a walk.

Tui, it turned out, was suffering from a sometimes fatal ailment called gastric dilatation-volvulus.

He had to have an emergency operation, and another a week later.

The vet told Hoffman that Tui needed a third surgery, but was too weak to survive it.

“He was in a lot of pain,” Hoffman said. “He was on a pad with a blanket on it in the middle of the floor. I went in and lay down with him. I petted him, and told him I’d miss him.”

Last Sunday, Tui died.

Hoffman owes $7,000 in veterinary bills, but the expense hasn’t kept him from getting another Great Dane.

Hoffman now is the proud--owner? father? comrade-in-arms? agent?--of a 14-week-old pup named Merlin.

Will Merlin do his magic for the kids at Loma Vista?

“In a heartbeat,” Hoffman said.

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Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.