For Lorraine Zuber, the near future holds many a silent night and day. The hearing-impaired woman lost her best friend, her hearing dog, Colby.

The TIMES NEWS has featured a couple stories in the past about Dogs for the Deaf, its local spokesperson Lorraine Zuber of Palmerton, and her dog, Colby who alerted her to visitors at the front door or calls for help from her wheelchair-bound husband.The articles attracted invitations to speak, turning Lorraine and Colby into local celebrities, with invitations into the coming summer when the Zubers would return from overwintering in Florida.Unfortunately, that will not come to be."I hate to inform you," Zuber said, "Colby, my Hearing Dog, got hit by a car at the campground in Kissimmee, Florida on Dec. 4 and died instantly."According to Zuber, Colby jerked his leash as she was tying him to an outside line, and he took off."I followed him on my bike, blowing the whistle and calling him," she said. "Other people in the campground were trying to help catch him. I got close to him a few times but he was so quick I couldn't grab him."Colby ran back and forth across the main campground road."He crossed it one too many times," Zuber said."We buried him at the campground," she noted. "He can now run free whenever he wants to."Within a few years after graduating from high school, Zuber began noticing that she was unable to hear things like the ticking of a clock. She began using hearing aids of various varieties, first in her left ear, and then for both ears. Recently, she received a cochlear, a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound. It's often referred to as a bionic ear.After her first husband became wheelchair bound from injuring his neck in a fall, Zuber became his caregiver, only she couldn't hear him from another room.She had read articles about hearing dogs that alert their owners to certain sounds, and wrote to the several addresses where they were being trained. It was around 1984, when the first "hearing dogs" were becoming available from private trainers on the East Coast and Dogs for the Deaf was just a few years old on the West Coast.From the letters she wrote, Zuber received a response from a Massachusetts hearing dog trainer, Bryant Farms. At Bryant Farms, she met Honey, a part Pomeranian, who she would love and depend on for the next 15 years.Honey was followed by Scout, and Scout by Shaggy, a shelter dog Zuber planned to train after she learned of a potential five-year wait for a hearing dog.But a year later, Colby became available from Dogs for the Deaf. She wasn't sure what to do. When she received a photo of the Pomeranian and realized it looked exactly like Shaggy, and a little girl named Katey wanted Shaggy, and the daughter of the donor was named Katey, Zuber felt this was meant to be.The Zubers drove to Dogs for the Deaf in Central Point, Oregon to get Colby. Zuber was so proud of Colby that last summer she and Colby met visitors at the Carbon County Fair as representatives for Dogs for the Deaf.Dogs for the Deaf is evaluating whether Zuber will be eligible for another dog.Donations may be sent to Dogs for the Deaf, 10175 Wheeler Rd, Central Point, OR 97502, in memory of Colby Zuber.