What are SLU Pets Doing?
What They Are up to Without Us Around
One of the worst parts about leaving home for college is deserting your beloved pets. No more cuddles before bed, playing tug of war, or secretly feeding them under the table. Students must leave their fuzzy companions at home and brave the college scene. While there is not a lack of animals on campus, from various professors and locals to the weekly Doggy De-Stress, it is not the same as having our own pets here with us.
This week I am here to share some stories of what SLU student’s pets get up to while we are studying in ODY, dancing at the Ticker, and cheering on the sports teams along with some heartwarming homecoming stories.
Let’s start out with my own dogs, a big seven-year-old Bernadoodle, Java, and a four-year-old Catahoula mix, Finn. They are definitely an odd pair, and while they may not be the most well-behaved dogs, they are adorable, loving and very loyal. There are countless stories to tell about these two. Java’s odd habit of eating the pansies that sprout up every spring, Finn’s odd protest to the TV being on, and their countless encounters with skunks. But today I’ll share a recent story of something the two got up to while I was here at school.
Earlier this week, I requested a photo of my dogs because who doesn’t need a heartwarming picture of their pets during this time of the year to make them miss home even more. My mom sent me a picture of an open bag of flour spilled across our living room carpet. Then two more pictures of the culprits and their masterpiece. Apparently, my dogs, who get fed two meals a day at routine times including vegetables, which they love, were not satisfied with their breakfast and wanted a sweet treat. Clearly, no one taught them how to properly bake because a general rule of thumb is to put the ingredients in a bowl. While I’m not sure how their baking activity went, they deserve a Gold Medal.
With Halloweekend coming up, we have a story about a dog’s dilemma to find the perfect costume. While our features editor, Carson Hanna ’27, is busy in the newsroom, his Australian Shepard lab retriever mix, Stevie, is getting in the Halloween spirit. After days of frolicking around in piles of leaves, she decided to get serious about her Halloween costume choices. The problem is, most Halloween costumes are aimed towards smaller dogs, making it hard for her to find one that she liked. After mulling over her choices of being an elephant, a deer, or a fairy-unicorn, she decided that the pink fairy wings and unicorn horn took the cake! Hopefully, she’ll be put in a costume contest because this is one for the books!
Now, for another SLU pet who gets up to no good is the dog of a SLU student’s grandfather, Jim. Huey, a 14-year-old long haired dachshund mix, is another questionably behaved, but lovable dog. He spends most of his time stealing food and running away from vacuums.
However, Huey’s preferred activity of choice is chasing chipmunks. He digs large holes into chipmunk burrows to catch them, but winds up stuck inside the small, dog-shaped hole. Cleverly, Jim has found a solution for getting Huey out of the chipmunk burrows if he is not wearing a leash. Using a long pole, because no one wants to touch Huey with a 39.5-foot pole, Jim hooks his collar and extracts him. While this may seem a little extreme, he quite literally dug himself into this hole.
This next story reflects the high expectations and the disappointing realities of coming home to our pets after a long semester. When Zach Jaworski ’24 was a first year, he was very excited to go back home for the first time and see his cats Bess, a gray tabby with black “snow leopard” stripes, and Truman, an orange tabby with a tongue that hangs from his mouth.
On his way home from SLU, he stopped in Syracuse to get some Chick-fil-A before continuing the rest of the drive home. When he arrived home, even though darkness had fallen, he could see two sets of ears silhouetted in the window. After a welcoming greeting from Truman, not surprising as he would look for attention from a zombie that walked through the door, Zach sat down on the couch. Surprisingly, Bess, the more reserved of the two, came over and climbed into his lap. What had changed about the cat? Then he realized — there was a piece of Chick-fil-a chicken on his shirt, and Bess was simply looking to eat it.
That’s all for our SLU pet stories! Hopefully these helped make that pre-Thanksgiving break lull a little better. Keep bothering your parents for pictures of your pets, and if you have any fun pet stories, make sure to email mcserr22@stlawu.edu.
