Spring howled into campus over panting tongues, past inside-out ears and on four paws before turning around three times and resting on the Oval. This annual puppy-proliferation breeds happiness in passersby and proves that a dog is a student’s best friend.
But many students fail to reciprocate when the quarter ends. As living arrangements change for the summer, dogs are abandoned in off-campus housing and streets. Spring leaves whimpering with its tail between its legs.
“Once weather warms up, we adopt out more dogs,” said Susan Smith, community relations director for the Franklin County Dog Shelter.
Therefore, fair-weather adoptees find themselves back where they started.
“In the summer, we get calls from landlords about abandoned dogs in campus apartments and houses,” said Cheri Miller, marketing and events manager for the Capital Area Humane Society.
“Tons of students dump dogs at the end of the school year,” said Molly Stancliff, president of Buckeyes for Canines.
Reasons for this extend far beyond dogs’ proclivity for eating homework. More fundamentally, the student lifestyle is not ideal for dog ownership.
“College students are too transient to own dogs,” Miller said.
More generally, students are unprepared for the responsibility that comes with a new dog.
Ohio State’s College of Veterinary Medicine encourages students to think about what their roommates and landlord would think of a new dog and what they would do with it during breaks.
The Capital Area Humane Society says people should not get dogs if they are away from home for more than eight hours a day.
“It’s even harder for grad students to own dogs,” said Maeve Hopkins, dog chair for the medical school’s MEDPaws program.
Getting a puppy is no spring fling, as the average lifespan for a dog is 12 years.
“Students should know this is a lifelong commitment,” Miller said.
But many don’t.
“Very few students understand how much work it is,” Stancliff said. “So lots of places won’t adopt out to students.”
The College of Veterinary Medicine’s Shelter Medicine Club actively discourages students from getting dogs.
Shelter medicine is a specialty branch of veterinary medicine that looks at ways of housing animals, preventing disease spread and issues of abuse and neglect, said Melissa Weber, communications and marketing director for the College of Veterinary Medicine.
The Shelter Medicine Club created the Safe Summer program in 2008 to “offer solutions to the problems of pet abandonment by college students,” according to its website.
The program takes in animals that “students leaving for the summer can’t take care of,” Weber said. “A main reason students leave dogs is because their parents don’t want them at home.”
This pet collection runs from about a week before classes end
through a week after graduation.
“No judgements,” Weber said. “We’re just here to help.”
There are alternatives to ownership for dog-loving students.
“Lots of volunteer programs in town could really use help,” Weber said. “It gives you contact with the animals with none of the responsibility.”
The Franklin County Animal Shelter and most private shelters and rescues in Columbus need help with everything from walking dogs to bathing and grooming them.
“Animals do much better the more human contact they have,” Weber said.
Students who work like dogs and don’t have time to volunteer can attend dog-appreciation events around Columbus.
Buckeyes for Canines partnered with OSU’s Mount Leadership Society to host Play with a Puppy Day on Saturday at the Royer Student Activities Center on north campus. With puppies supplied by the Franklin County Shelter, the event was aptly named, as students came to pet, scratch and play with rescued puppies. All donations from the event went to Pets Without Parents, a nonprofit, non-kill Columbus shelter.
The same groups will team up again from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Friday at Paws for a Purpose on the South Oval. This animal awareness fair will feature a dog agility demo, local shelters and rescues and many other animal organizations.
