Keeping pets on campus
Amanda Barber kept her two pet turtles hidden from her managers for months in her apartment in the Valley View Tower. While her resident assistant turned a blind eye, her boss did not. When the manager came for the cleaning check Barber and her roommates kept their turtles a secret by hiding them in the shower, turning it on, pretending someone was in there. To explain the turtle tank they filled it with water and put a fish, which is allowed, in its place.
“It was a last minute plan we cooked up but turned out okay,” recently graduated Barber said. “We got to keep our turtles so it worked well enough.”
For USU students living on campus, keeping pets can be perilous, but many students are willing to take the risk. For those that qualify, pets are available as support and service animals for mental and physical disabilities.
“On occasion students try to smuggle pets in here, it’s not an everyday occurrence, but it happens,” said Timothy Ledna, the residence director for the Living Learning Center. “Right now there are rumors that there is a snake living under someone’s bed somewhere in the LLC which I’m currently investigating.”
Students living on campus are required to obey the pet policy rules outlined in the Resident Handbook. The handbook states: “potential health and sanitation problems dictate that pets of any kind, other than fish in an aquarium, are not allowed possession, care, or harboring of all animals, except fish, is prohibited in University Housing or adjacent grounds.”
Violation of the residents’ pet policy may result in a $50 fine and removal of the animal. If the animal is not removed within three days, then the student is subject to an additional $100 fine and possible eviction.
“You may see animals on campus in residence halls that are not fish that do not fall under our pet policy, but those are protected under our support or service animal policy,” Ledna said.
Campus residents suffering from physical disabilities are permitted to live with service animals while support animals are allowed for students with mental disabilities. This right is protected by the Fair Housing Act.
“I have a support animal, a black cat. She has been my support animal for a long time, but officially since 2008,” said resident assistant Felicia Gallegos. “I didn’t even know we were allowed to have pets here until last year.”
Now that Gallegos has a support pet of her own, she now helps her residents obtain the proper certification to live with their own support animals.
The Resident Handbook states: “students who require a therapy or support animal must receive the proper approval before moving on campus or getting the animal. Written approval must be granted by the Utah State University Disability Resource Center.”
“I have a resident right now that is trying to get a support animal, but getting the letter can be hard,” Gallegos said. “I went through my personal physician but you can also go through the counseling office. They want to make sure that you aren’t just abusing it, so that’s the hardest part. Its a bit easier when you have a physical disability because its obvious you need it.”
Students wanting a pet may feel injustice, because their managers are allowed to keep more types of pets than students are, though staff members have restrictions of their own.
“Resident staff members like me have to jump through the paperwork hoops as well in order to have pets,” Ledna said. “I have two cats of my own. I’ve found that having pets are a great conversation starter with the residents and we’re able to build a rapport with students, which is great because relations can be strained between us at times.”
Ledna and other residence staff members realize the desire of students to interact with animals. Various USU residents assistants have held numerous activities involving animals over the past year.
“Last year we held a fun little icebreaker activity where each suite started the year with a fish in a small bowl and then got points for upgrades they got for their fish,” Gallegos said. “It was a competition that lasted the entire year, but most of the fish died within the first few days.”
Ledna said that they had a problem with students bringing puppies from Rent a Puppy into the residence hall last year. Several resident assistants put on Rent a Puppy activities for campus residents to enjoy having a pet for an hour or two.
“We know that residents were attracted to that, so to help we decided that if a RA put on a program with rent a puppy and took the precautionary measures to avoid health risks and apartment damage,” Ledna said. “We had a lot of successful RA programs across campus that did the activity during finals week as a stress reliever program for students.”
Despite efforts by the residence staff to accommodate student’s wants for interaction with animals, they still expect students to try and keep restricted animals as pets.
“A lot of people still sneak smaller pets like turtles into their apartments,“ Gallegos said. “If we haven’t caught them yet they must be pretty good at smuggling pets.”