UMFK goes pet friendly for the fall

FORT KENT, Maine (WMTW) - Students at the University of Maine Fort Kent will now be able to bring a special friend to campus with them. The university has announced it is now a pet friendly campus.

Matthew Morrin is the Dean of Students at the University of Maine at Fort Kent. He says: “It’s a win, win, win all the way around. For us, for the students and hopefully for the pets.”

Recently the university made the decision to become a pet friendly campus, allowing some students to bring certain pets to live on campus.

According to Morrin: “About a third of all students have some sort of mental health concerns that they’re dealing with. We know that pets can help students with that, calming anxiety. This is an opportunity that isn’t offered by many schools. If students are looking and want to bring their pet with them, we’d certainly be an option that is different than anyone else in the state actually.”

Morrin adds pets also help students meet other people and make friends in a natural way. Pets that will be allowed on campus include cats, hamsters, gerbils, hermit crabs and certain types of birds. While dogs are not allowed at this time, Morrin says they are considering them for the future. Students who bring pets will be housed in a wing of Crocker Hall. This will allow the school to see what the demand will be.

“Right now, it’s limited by the number of rooms in that wing, so it would be limited to 15 to start. If we have a large number of students that are interested in this, we can quickly adapt. We could find other rooms or other floors. There’s an application that’s online, so they would fill that out. Pets have to be approved by a vet, depending on what type of pet, cats need to be spayed or neutered. We make sure they’ve had the pet for a certain amount of time and that they also intend to keep the pet on leaving us,” he said.

For more information you can visit www.umfk.edu/student-life/ or call 834-7500. This program is separate from the already established emotional support animals that are allowed on campus with paper work.