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The College of Northern Iowa (UNI) marching band, The Panther Marching Band, has a cute and ‘Golden’ member stealing the present – Winnie the Golden Retriever, a service canine to a UNI sophomore.
In an interview with KCRG, Winnie’s hooman and UNI sophomore Gabi Riessen stated, “I’m part of the marching band, so that means she is, too.”
Winnie, a Golden Retriever, is Riessen’s service canine. In a UNI article, Riessen revealed her relationship with Winnie and the way she ended up within the marching band with Winnie.
Riessen is a switch majoring in elementary schooling from Denison, Iowa. From her earlier faculty, she was “met with obstacles” to take part in band and theater as a result of she has a service canine.
Within the article, Riessen reveals that she selected to switch to UNI as a result of two of her pals attended the varsity. And since she hopes to get the complete school expertise, with Winnie by her aspect, at UNI.
“One of my best friends, Ren — she’s on the color guard team, and she told me about how much she loved it and how amazing Director Justin Mertz is,” stated Riessen.
“So she gave me his email, and I reached out to him to see if being in the band with my dog could even be a possibility, and we met and talked about it. I think he’s more excited to have a dog in the band than I am.”
Immediately, Winnie is a part of the Panther Marching Band. She marches with Riessen and stays by her aspect within the frontline.
Riessen even reveals, “Honestly, I think she’s a better marcher than me. She’s just really good at adapting to any situation I put her in.”
Additionally reveals that Winnie loves the eye she will get as a marching band member. Riessen reveals, “There’s so many people watching her, and she eats it up.”
Nevertheless, earlier than being a Panther Marching Band member, Winnie is, at first, a service canine to Reissen.
As a service canine, Winnie helps Riessen handle her postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) – a continual dysfunction that causes drawback in an individual’s autonomic nervous system.
Riessen explains POTS in easy phrases saying, “For me, it means that I pass out randomly without warning. Like my heart rate just fluctuates more than most people.”
Winnie is skilled to choose up on adjustments in Riessen that signifies a fainting spell. She’s going to then alert Riessen of an upcoming fainting spell, permitting the UNI sophomore to get to a protected spot to keep away from hurting herself. She’s going to then lie beside Riessen and defend her.
Riessen stated Winnie supplies her with a “sense of normalcy”. “Winnie has made it where I can be like a normal person again,” stated Riessen.
“I can do band, because she’ll let me know if I’m okay, and I can go to my classes. Before her, we didn’t know if college was going to be an option.”
And whereas service canine can’t be pet throughout their “work hours”, Winnie is totally different. Riessen reveals that she doesn’t thoughts when individuals pet Winnie, giving again the sense of normalcy that the pooch has been offering her.
“If we’re not doing anything, I’ll let them pet her because she deserves to be a dog and to have fun because I would hate for her to just be so structured that she misses out on that,” she stated.
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