Answer Man: Are pets allowed in dormitories on the Missouri State University campus?
— David Stoeffler, of Springfield, your boss
Flash forward to Jan. 26, 2024.
I'm running along John Q. Hammons Parkway on campus like my life and job depend on it. I'm slowly gaining on someone in a black parka walking a tiny dog.
My problem is that David has seen dogs on campus. My newsroom colleagues have seen dogs on campus. In fact, government reporter Jack McGee saw two dogs on campus earlier this very day.
But I have not seen dogs on campus. Until now.
I catch the woman with the dog. I'm out of breath. I don't want to frighten her or the dog. Little dogs can be mean.
She stops. She does not spray me with Mace.
She pulls out her ear buds and I say something like “Pokin reporter Answer Man dogs dormitory talk to you.”
Her name is Melynn Miller. She's a senior studying art teacher education.
The dog is Ronnie, 4 months old.
They live in an apartment complex, not in a dorm.
This is sort of what I suspected. Many of the people seen walking dogs on campus do not live in dormitories. And, no, I'm not about to follow students walking dogs into their dormitories.
Miller once lived in a dorm, she tells me, and she knew back then pets were not allowed.
No pets in university housing! Unless...
Emily Yeap confirms this. She is a spokesperson for Missouri State University. But there are exceptions, she says, to the prohibition. Let's start with the broad ones:
- Service animals trained to assist persons with disabilities. This is a right provided under federal law.
- University approved emotional support animals.
- Animals used in university laboratories for official research, classroom or observation purposes.
- Animals used in equine instruction at the agricultural center.
- Fish in properly maintained aquariums of 20 gallons of water or less are allowed in residence halls.
Now that we know students in dorms can have fish, let's focus on “service animals” and “emotional support animals.”
To be allowed to have a “service animal” you, the human, must first have a disability.
And the pet, in order to be a “service animal,” has to have been trained to help you with that disability.
Can a miniature horse be your service animal?
According to MSU policy, which clearly was written by someone who has miniature horses, states:
A service animal is “any dog individually trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability. A miniature horse may classify as a service animal if the miniature horse has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of the individual with a disability and the facilities can accommodate the miniature horse given the type, size, and weight of the miniature horse.”
This raises the question: How big can a “miniature horse” be and still be “miniature?”
An “emotional support animal” is an animal that helps someone deal with the symptoms of a disability, but the animal has not been trained to do so or, perhaps, I'm guessing here, has flunked out of training.
Once again, referring to MSU policy:
An emotional support animal “is an animal that provides emotional support that alleviates one or more identified symptom(s) or effect(s) of an individual’s disability. However, the animal has not been specifically trained to do work or perform and does not perform work or tasks that would qualify it as a service animal.”
Yes, but what about miniature horses?
An emotional support animal, to me, sounds like an animal that simply is loving and cuddly.
Which clearly rules out fish, regardless of the size of the aquarium.
This is Answer Man column No. 63,
