If you don’t look at console output and want to hear that host is reachable then just add -a parameter to ping command (Linux).
$ ping -V
ping utility, iputils-sss20101006$ ping -a 8.8.8.8
PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=1 ttl=44 time=38.9 ms (beep)
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=2 ttl=44 time=39.3 ms (beep)
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=3 ttl=44 time=39.0 ms (beep)
^C
--- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2003ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 38.997/39.138/39.346/0.273 ms