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Pets a r apartm e being smu wary o ents in the ggled into d ar o f the n earby ea – their o rms and wn whistle blower ers constan . tly BY GINA EDWARDS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY CONOR LAMB
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ats clawing on furniture and dogs barking at all hours don’t exactly facilitate a comfortable living environment for inhabitants of confined residence halls or miniscule apartments. Despite these annoyances, some students choose to break the rules and smuggle their furry friends into a dormitory or apartment in which they are forbidden. Most smuggling cases involve small domestic animals, like a hamster or cat. Other students, like Ohio University alumnus JK Wilson, share their space with more exotic pets. The 2009 graduate housed two ducks, Duck and Lucy, and a python, Clarence, in his Palmer Place apartment last year. “We kept Clarence in a cage in my roommate’s room when we didn’t have him out, and the ducks stayed in the bathtub,” JK says. He explains that he kept the two ducks for around eight weeks until they were fully grown, and then took them to a wildlife rehabilitation center. Overall, he described his experience with the animals very positively. “I only had to feed Clarence once a week, and the ducks were fairly easy,” he says. “Cleaning up after the ducks sucked though. They poop a lot— and everywhere.” The sanitation issue is just one of the many reasons that pets are prohibited, explains Judy Piercy, associate director for residential housing. “People could have allergies, and it could be a problem with sanitation, waste, and noise,” she says. The guide to residential living on OU’s Web site states, “In the past, animals found in the residence halls have received inadequate diets, inadequate exercise and excessive handling. The confines of a residence hall room are inadequate for proper pet care.” Although the rules prohibiting pets are clearly stated and
plastered on fliers throughout the dorms, residential housing does not seek to get a student housing a pet in trouble. “We give them a chance to find a place for it—usually we give them 24 hours, and then that’s the end of it,” Judy says, adding that although they find a few pets every year, the office doesn’t come across the problem very often. “There could be some who are doing a very good job of hiding and sneaking though.” Taylor Baum’s Airedale terrier, Charlie, was one of these smuggled pets. Taylor and her boyfriend bought the dog on a whim, and she kept him in her single at the end of spring quarter. “He was still a puppy when he stayed in my room so it wasn’t bad,” Taylor says, “and the cleaning staff was cool with it. They said as long as I cleaned up after him it was OK.” Taylor said that having close affiliations with members of the residence life staff also helped her keep the dog in her room until school let out, but she was still forced to sneak out the back stairs in order to get Charlie outside to go for walks without other staff members noticing. She took special care to make sure that Charlie was fed, walked and socialized often. All the stress was worth it, though—Taylor couldn’t have had a happier time in the dorm. However, Shelley Lieberman, a spokeswoman for the Athens County Humane Society, hesitates to endorse keeping pets in those kinds of situations. Her biggest concern is what would happen to the pet once an RA or landlord found out. “If you get caught, what’s going to happen to your pet?” she asks. “If they end up at a shelter you don’t know what’s going to happen to them.”
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Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
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While many college students are great pet owners, the college lifestyle is not conducive to diligently caring for a pet. “I don’t think that a lot of students realize how much responsibility it is,” Lieberman says. “You can’t just go out one night and not come home when you have a pet.” While JK and Taylor both managed to balance college responsibilities and caring for their animals, they have conflicting advice about sneaking a pet into a residence hall. “Definitely don’t have any pets in your dorm room. It’s not worth the trouble, and it’s not good for the animal,” JK advises.
Taylor says that depending on the pet owner and type of pet purchased, having an animal in a dorm room doesn’t have to be a bad situation. “I would not get a puppy. Get a fullsized dog. That way you know how their personality and habits are going to be,” she says. Although Lieberman does not condone keeping pets in “illegal” housing, she stresses that becoming educated about all facets of pet ownership is crucial when determining if you are ready to own one in general. She advises that students ask themselves if they have the money, time and long-term resources that a pet needs in order to have a good life. While safety inspections and unexpected drop-ins by resident assistants are a potential nuisance, OU students are finding ways to house their beloved pets, albeit sometimes illegally. Contraband animals have for a long time found their way into dormitories and apartments, but for now, no on is howling about it.
In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.