The University of Northern Iowa (UNI) marching band, The Panther Marching Band, has a cute and ‘Golden’ member stealing the show – Winnie the Golden Retriever, a service dog to a UNI sophomore.
In an interview with KCRG, Winnie’s hooman and UNI sophomore Gabi Riessen said, “I’m part of the marching band, so that means she is, too.”
Winnie, a Golden Retriever, is Riessen’s service dog. In a UNI article, Riessen revealed her relationship with Winnie and how she ended up in the marching band with Winnie.
Riessen is a transfer majoring in elementary education from Denison, Iowa. From her previous school, she was “met with obstacles” to participate in band and theater because she has a service dog.
In the article, Riessen reveals that she chose to transfer to UNI because two of her friends attended the school. And because she hopes to get the full college experience, with Winnie by her side, 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,” said 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.”
Today, Winnie is part of the Panther Marching Band. She marches with Riessen and stays by her side in 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.”
Also reveals that Winnie loves the attention she gets as a marching band member. Riessen reveals, “There’s so many people watching her, and she eats it up.”
However, before being a Panther Marching Band member, Winnie is, first and foremost, a service dog to Reissen.
As a service dog, Winnie helps Riessen manage her postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) – a chronic disorder that causes problem in a person’s autonomic nervous system.
Riessen explains POTS in simple terms saying, “For me, it means that I pass out randomly without warning. Like my heart rate just fluctuates more than most people.”
Winnie is trained to pick up on changes in Riessen that indicates a fainting spell. She will then alert Riessen of an upcoming fainting spell, allowing the UNI sophomore to get to a safe spot to avoid hurting herself. She will then lie beside Riessen and protect her.
Riessen said Winnie provides her with a “sense of normalcy”. “Winnie has made it where I can be like a normal person again,” said 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 while service dogs cannot be pet during their “work hours”, Winnie is different. Riessen reveals that she does not mind when people pet Winnie, giving back the sense of normalcy that the pooch has been providing 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 said.