As they say, dogs are man’s best friend. They never seem to disappoint when it comes to making the best memories with them. This is true for all pets. Many students have a variety of pets, including cats, dogs, rabbits, fish, reptiles, hamsters; the list goes on. 

Rowan Kalar ‘27 shared how her pet bearded dragon, Morticia, whenever she was out of her cage, would run around. One particular evening, Morticia was out and about running around its cage. Simultaneously, Kalar worked, but found it hard to concentrate because the bearded dragon would periodically scamper around rapidly, its arms and legs flailing quickly about in a circular motion and sliding across the floor. 

Kalar’s dog, Luna, is very clingy. Luna tends to infiltrate others’ space. One time, when Kalar and her sister were preoccupied, Luna inserted herself directly on top of Kalar’s sister, Poppy Kalar ‘29, sitting right on her face and extending her paws on her body, stretching out. Lastly, another relatable and exceedingly memorable occurrence for Rowan is the fact that her cat will bite and scratch if she is petted too much or too little.. While this is something that many cats frequently proudly display as their personality, it never fails to make Rowan laugh.

Another frequent story was times when dogs would play wildly with others around them or even with their owners. Natalie Heitmiller ‘29 has fond memories of wrestling around with her dog. It began with him teething at her, to which she pushed him away, causing it to spiral until they were on the ground scuffling. For another memorable moment with her pets, Heitmiller told a story about the time during winter when her dog fell off a small ledge and into a frozen lake. While she was out walking the dog with her family, the dog suddenly swerved. The dog turned a bit too hard and ended up tripping and falling into the frozen lake underneath. Heitmiller laughed about how “they had to pull him out of the frozen lake like a handbag by the harness.”

A particularly amusing memory that stood out to Blakely Schmidt ‘29 was the time when her dog acquired a pair of scissors. While Schmidt and her family were doing garden work together, her golden retriever came across a pair of scissors, picked them up with its mouth, and held them up proudly. At that moment, her dog got the zoomies and began to bolt dangerously close and around her family, stubbornly not letting go of the scissors.

While most people have pets “just for the fun of it”, the memories that come with or that come out of connecting with and going crazy with them make having a pet worthwhile to many students. They serve as great mechanisms for regulating human emotions.