By Amy Zimmermann

Campus pets come with challenges for students.

These challenges range from keeping the pet alive to, for some, keeping it hidden from Residential Life.

Students are only allowed to have fish in tanks no larger than 10 gallons in their campus rooms or apartments, according to the Residential Life Web site.

Heidi Hilleson, resident director in Brian and Margretta Hall, said it is a full-time commitment to have pets, especially in residential communities.

“Students are sharing a living space,” she said. “It can create more roommate issues than already exist.”

Sophomore Maura Cavanaugh has had several fish this past year. She and her roommate struggle with keeping their fish longer than a month.

“Currently, we are trying to see how long we can keep them alive,” Cavanaugh said.

Cavanaugh and her roommate are currently on their fifth fish of the year. She said they have learned something new from each of their former fish, which helps keep the next one alive even longer.

“We didn’t realize the location of the fish in the room and the time it’s fed makes a difference in its health,” Cavanaugh said.

Cat-sitting

Some students have challenged the residential life staff by having pets such as cats, guinea pigs and birds in their rooms or apartments. Some were caught, but others decided they didn’t want to have the pet anymore.

Senior Steph Roers and her roommates had a kitten for a short time during fall semester. The kitten was her roommate’s pet that was rejected by its mother and would have died.

“This cat was so small,” Roers said. “It lived in a shoe box with an incubator, and they had to bottle feed it.”

She said they didn’t have to work to hide the kitten from Residential Life staff because they live in Luetmer. They did, however, try to keep it from getting too close to the door by locking it in the back two rooms or the second bathroom.

The kitten was moved out when it was strong enough to eat solid food.

Legal cats

Hilleson said that as a resident director she is allowed to have a cat because her apartment in Brian Hall is her permanent home.

During her first two years as a resident director she lived in Corona, and the students welcomed her cat, Lily.

“Students who missed their cat or dog would come to play with her,” Hilleson said.

She doesn’t get the same response from students in the sophomore resident halls.

It can be a challenge to keep a pet on campus with the busy schedules students have. Cavanaugh said she found the challenge rewarding.

“It has been a joyous event,” she said. “It has improved my college experience.”

Filed under: News by Amy Zimmermann