Dog owner withdrawal

People have a lot to criticize about college students today. Ours is the most apathetic demographic in terms of voter turnout and activism. We lack the ideals of our parents and the work ethic of our grandparents. We're naively optimistic and overly self-confident, and instead of reading literature or learning about art we prefer to spend our time binge drinking and having loveless sex. Psychologists, statisticians and journalists have all come up with ways to validate these generalizations, but I think there's a far more simple and heretofore unconfirmed method by which one could grasp the true nature of the modern college student. Just take a dog for a walk around campus.\nDogs are the great equalizer. Black or white, man or woman, jock or nerd, I have seen students from every walk of life set their eyes upon a cute mutt sauntering through the arboretum and inevitably their faces light up. They crouch down on their knees, raise their voice a couple of octaves and start mussing up the animal's hair. It never fails.\nLast year a neighbor illegally kept her friend's Pomeranian puppy in her dorm room for a couple of weeks. The dog was essentially a two pound ball of fluff with a smile. Its dog-sitter would frequently let it yip and jump around the courtyard, and never seemed the least bit concerned that she would be caught. This was probably because the crowd of students fawning over the animal was always so thick that there was little chance that anyone outside would even catch a glimpse of it.\nAccording to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, 40 percent of U.S. households own at least one dog. According to IU's web site, all students are required to live on campus during their freshman year, and almost a third return to the residence halls their sophomore year. Another 18 percent of the campus is Greek, and many others live in pet-free apartment complexes.\nThese numbers, combined with my own informal observations, have led me to conclude that there is a crisis going unnoticed and unacknowledged by this University-- dog-owner withdrawal. Many coming to college are used to seeing their pets every day, and these frisbee-catching, bone-munching animals with whom they lived served a crucial function in their lives. Students' dogs are often the first source of relief from the malaise and drudgery of a school day, and college, the time when they may need that relief the most, might be their first time deprived of it.\nSuch deprivation could lead to depression, poor grades, listlessness, and pieces of bacon stuck behind ears never to be licked off.\nBut there is something IU can do to quell this rising epidemic. I propose a University-sponsored, on-campus dog park. This park would be populated by dogs adopted by the University and cared for by volunteers. It would be a place where students could come to play with, walk, or just be around man's best friend. Liability would of course be a concern-- there is always the risk of a dog hurting a person or person hurting a dog. But where these risks are small and can be taken care of with the signing of a waiver, the potential benefits are awesome.\nSo bring us some Dachshunds, Huskies and Hounds, Terriers, Great Danes and Golden Retrievers, some Pugs, Poodles and Pomeranians. The students of IU need them desperately, and I'd like to see what those psychologists, statisticians and journalists will have to say after we get them. They might see a whole new breed of college student.