Dorm Pets

Late last semester I found out that my soon-to-be-roommate really wanted for us to have a pet when we came back to school. She requested a newt. He would be named Isaac (she's a science nerd, gotta love it). I was totally down with this idea. However, dorms have some restrictions on what sorts of animals you can keep in the building. When you look up our school policy, it says:

"Pets are not permitted in any residential buildings, except fish in properly maintained, clean aquariums, maximum not to exceed 20 gallons total capacity per room/apartment and registered/trained guide dogs."

Whenever a discussion arises about the pet rule, it always gets paraphrased a little bit. So "fish in properly maintained, clean aquariums" becomes "anything with gills that lives underwater." Well, what if I have a frog or something? It doesn't have gills, but it can live underwater... "anything that lives predominantly underwater." I feel like 'predominantly' is a relative term... "anything that can hold its breath underwater for at least 3 minutes." This cycle continues until it becomes something like, "anything that can comfortably fit into an aquarium." Comfortably? Really? I fit in my dorm room but it's not necessarily "comfortable." ... "anything that can fit into an aquarium."

I have a 10-gallon aquarium. It can fit a lot.

Goal achieved!

We've contemplated fish, newts, frogs, a kitten, a puppy, a chinchilla, a chameleon, hamsters, turtles, Boo, a black-footed cat, a fennec fox, a red fox, and a bearded dragon. Whenever we want an animal that's too big for the tank, we just decide to shrink it, so we're also considering a mini giraffe, mini dolphin, mini manatee, mini binturong, and alligator (we think that maybe we can get this one when it's a baby and then just will-power it to stay small.)

So we'll see how this adventure turns out.