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I laugh when people complain about how much hair their labs or
their their beagles shed. They might want to avoid owning a dog
that was bred to live in the arctic where temperatures can drop
to minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit. These dogs pull sleds in the
Alaskan winter and sleep out in the snow while they are on the
trail. Come to think of it, they usually sleep out in the snow
even when they are home, bearing howling winds and the worst of
artic storms. You've heard of clothes that are 50% polyester,
80% nylon, or 70% wool. I wasn't even joking when I told people
that everything I owned was 50% Malamute. Every morning before I
left for work I took one of those velcro brushes and combed all
the dog hair off of my pants. I kept another brush at work and the first thing I
did when I got into the office was to clean off what hair I may have missed at
home. Yet to this day my boss is kind enough to remind me that there was always
dog hair on my pants. And it wasn't just my pants, Tecumseh's hair was
everywhere. I will share a story with you that is not even
scientifically possilble. In my photography I used several different films and
each film created a different appeal. At times Kodachrome 64
rendered incredible images, and some of those Kodachrome
photograhs you can see right here on this website, but as the
years
progressed Kodachrome's popularity decreased to the point that
it could no longer be developed in Salt Lake City. Their little
light proof cannister had to be sent all the way to California
where it was not opened until it arrived inside the darkroom,
after which it was run through about five or six tanks of fluid
including among others water, a developer, a stop bath, and a
fixer. It was then hung to dry and eventually cut into pieces
and run through a machine that inserts the film into little
frames. These color transparencies were then packed into a
little cardboard slide box and shipped back to me. One of these
boxes arrived back from California, I opened it up, and began
flipping through the slides. I was completely flabbergasted when
about 10 slides deep, right in the middle of the box between two
of the slides, I uncovered one of Tecumseh's hairs. And, no, it
was not a human hair, it was not another dog's hair, it was
distinctly Tecumseh's hair with his specific color markings. To
this day I still can't understand how it is possilbe that one of
his hairs could get inside the camera, inside the film
cannister, go all the way to California, survive a half a dozen
deep sea dives, film drying and cutting, and come all the way
back to me in Salt Lake City, not even stuck to the film, but
just resting peacefully between two of my slides. That's just how
inescapable his hair was. It took him about 5 months to change out for summer
and then about 5 months again to change back for winter. I had a brief repreive
in August which seemed to be the only month during the entire
year he wasn't exploding hair all over the place. The photo
above illustrates just how much fur I brushed out of him in only
one of many sessions during the course of a year. I have always
thought that if I were to make a sweater out of Malamute
undercoat it would be much warmer than
wool. A few of the people that I have shared this concept with have countered,
"Oh, I don't know, wool is pretty warm." But what do they know? Have
sheep ever slept out in howling winds in the coldest place in the world? |
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