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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-left:.5in;text-align:center'><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>No Outfit is Complete Without a Few Dog Hairs<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-left:.5in;text-align:center'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-align:justify;line-height:200%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%'> Dogs shed. This is a fact of life to be included when considering becoming a dog guide handler. By the time we left The Seeing Eye, Tammy’s coat shone with daily brushing. This minimized the amount of fur she deposited on carpets and my clothes, but didn’t eliminate it completely. Labs have what is called a double-coat. The outer layer is made up of straight slightly stiff longer hairs. Under this is a soft fluffy fine coat for insulation. Tammy had two shed-outs a year, one in fall and a major one in spring. Taking her to a dog groomer for a good vigorous bath and brushing helped remove a lot of her undercoat. But for a few weeks each spring and fall, daily brushing harvested enough fluff to knit a litter of puppies. Before training with Tammy, I had always loved red, pink, any vivid bright color. In childhood, they were the colors I could recognize the longest as my vision began to deteriorate. When I was seven, I was disappointed that no one noticed it when I wore a new red dress. My mother laughed and marched me into my room. She opened my closet and pointed out that almost all of my dresses were solid red, red plaid, red stripes, or red polka dotted. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-align:justify;line-height:200%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%'>Mom had taught me to make French knots to braille my sweaters, headbands and socks to help me match my accessories when dressing. I tried not to buy two items of clothing that were identical in fabric or style. I learned to sew in junior high and with a lot of help from my mother I always managed to be attractively dressed. Having grown up in poverty, it was important to Mom that we not be embarrassed at school by our clothes or appearance. It wasn’t always easy to provide shoes and appropriate clothing for five children. She had a great eye for color and spent hours helping me redesign Goodwill Store finds. Mom taught me to take care with my appearance. Although I don’t care what other people look like, I feel more confident when I know I am attractively dressed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%'> At five foot three inches tall and weighing one hundred and ten pounds, I was petite. The mini skirts I wore were longer on me than they were on taller girls. In high school I easily passed the skirt length tests our physical education teacher imposed. She made the class kneel on the floor and used a ruler to check skirt lengths. Any girl wearing a skirt more than six inches above the floor was automatically sent to detention after school. My stepfather joked that mini skirts were invented so girls could run fast and that because they wore them, girls needed to run faster. When I left for college, I only owned one pair of jeans and one pair of tennis shoes that I had used for gym class. Curt said I made him feel like a bum whenever we went out because I always matched from head to toe. I borrowed a cambric work shirt, put my hair in pigtails and donned my one pair of jeans and gym shoes to meet him for a movie and he still thought I looked like a fashion plate because I had tied my pigtails with blue ribbons to match my shirt. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-align:justify;line-height:200%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%'>Because my brothers and stepfather were tall and had long legs, I had gotten into the habit of wearing heels ranging from two to three inches high. I had dozens of pairs of wild shoes. My favorite shoe store used my size in its window displays. After they were taken from the windows, the store often put them on sale for just a couple of dollars. So I left for college with chartreuse suede ankle boots, red high-heeled alligator boots, baby blue Cuban heels and a lot of other exotic footwear. They weren’t very practical for trudging across a rural campus. Although I could even run in heels, I found that they gave very poor footing on slick surfaces like icy sidewalks and rain slick steps. If I needed to do a leash correction, I had to have a solid stance. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%'> So, with Tammy in my life it was time to rethink my wardrobe. Heels and platform shoes were out. Boots had to have a good nonskid sole and be chosen for protection from mud, snow and rainwater. Running shoes were good choices for walking miles and looked okay with jeans. Skirts needed to be ankle length because they were easier to keep ladylike, while bending to harness a dog, clean up after her and sit on floors with her. They also worked better for climbing up into high vehicles like buses or pickup trucks. Black skirts and slacks didn’t show black dog hairs left behind by a wagging tail or Labrador sides and shoulders as my girl guided or just leaned against me. I could still wear bright colored blouses and shirts but black wool coats and jackets were good choices if I didn’t want to be running up large dry cleaning bills. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%'> Many people who are born blind forget that others can see them. In a sighted world, it is very important to take special care with your appearance. People are much more likely to approach in a friendly or helpful manner, someone who is clean and attractively dressed. Whether you are going for a job interview, looking for a sales clerk’s assistance or just striking up a casual conversation at a meeting or event, it is important to make a good impression. Having Tammy in my life meant resorting to a lint brush or roller as just one more step to preparing for going out into the sighted community. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-align:justify;text-indent:.5in;line-height:200%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%'> Tammy loved her grooming time. I can’t say she appreciated my need to vacuum more often because of her presence in my life. She hated the noise of the machine. Perhaps she thought that the vacuum cleaner might start with the dog hair and develop a taste for the flavor and a desire to consume the whole dog. Whatever the reason, my fearless protector in traffic and dicey situations scrambled to remove herself from any proximity to that dreaded mechanism. She almost fell out a window when she jumped to the bed and pressed against the screen over an open window to escape her nemesis. If anyone were vacuuming a public building, she always cut a wide berth around the infernal machine. Attempts to allow her to sniff the vacuum when it was turned off never completely convinced her they weren’t dangerous. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-align:justify;line-height:200%'><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in'><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='margin-left:.5in;text-align:center;line-height:200%'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>DeAnna Quietwater Noriega<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'><a href="mailto:Quieth2o@charter.net">Quieth2o@charter.net</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>573-544-3511<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>I am late getting this posted because I managed to launder my IPhone on Monday. All my contacts etc. were gone. I bought a new phone on Tuesday and it took most of today to get the settings adjusted and the various passwords reinstalled to retrieve files from the cloud. Phew, I need to avoid putting my phone through a full wash cycle again. <o:p></o:p></span></p></div></body></html>