Ximena Solorzano, Head Photography Editor

Morse Head of College Catherine Panter-Brick got her mini shepherd Rio in 2019 after a sustained campaign from students asking her to get a pet. Noting that other heads of college had dogs, the anthropology professor said that she received relentless emails from students for nearly a year asking her the same question: When are you getting your dog?

She eventually yielded.

Panter-Brick’s fun-loving fido isn’t alone — several other administrators credited their dogs with bringing stress relief and liveliness to campus. While Handsome Dan receives his flowers as Yale’s mascot, other administrator-owned pups have made appearances at college teas, commencement and fall festivities.

Administrators across campus said that aside from providing companionship, their dogs help ease student stress and foster a sense of belonging and community with students. The presence of these fluffy companions, they said, has helped brighten administrative spaces and form connections with students.

“You and I can go through the day performing really well, but this animal just makes you feel wonderful because he’s so happy to see you,” Panter-Brick said, adding that she was inspired to adopt the dog because some students missed their own pets.

Having made appearances at intramural soccer games, family receptions and teas, Rio has become a college staple, Panter-Brick said, with students attracted like a magnet to “his beauty and steadiness.”

The dog takes its name from the Rio Grande, where Panter-Brick was doing field work along the border between the United States and Mexico at the time of his adoption. She said having Rio “chills everybody out” and makes the college experience feel more like a home.

For other administrators, dogs have become an extension of their work and how they build community with students outside of the office.

Dogs Winston Aloysius Farley and Maxine Shaw are “the light” of Matthew Farley’s heart. As an assistant director of the Yale LGBTQ Center, Farley attributes the pair to relieving the “stress and tension” he encounters on campus.

Farley, who previously worked with K-12 students, often brought Winston with him for work. He said he hopes his pooches can bring joy to Yale, where students can take them for walks.

“I want to make sure that anywhere Winston and Maxine are, they’re able to touch at least one person or change one person’s day, because once that person’s day is changed, that affects their whole day and environment,” Farley said. “And that’s what they are here for.”

In residential colleges, deans and heads of college use dogs to create spaces of belonging.

Fubá, the dog belonging to Berkeley College Dean Bárbara Cruvinel Santiago ’17, is a “3-year old goofball,” doubling as the “Berkeley Dean of Pawffairs,” Cruvinel Santiago wrote in an email to the News.

The pup is an English cream golden retriever Cruvinel Santiago got three years ago while studying at Columbia University. She raised Fubá in a shared apartment in Manhattan and often took him around Columbia’s campus and on the subway.

At Yale now, Fubá has become a close companion to students walking into Cruvinel Santiago’s office and experiencing stress or sadness.

“It’s almost a daily occurrence that someone comes into the office looking for him and not anyone else,” she wrote. “These students just want a moment of peace and some cuddles to feel better during a particularly stressful day; it also gives them an excuse to come to the office and open up if something is wrong.”

Cruvinel Santiago also admitted that Fubá has given her a lens into student life that she may not have had otherwise. She’s noticed students often stopping her on her walks with Fubá to confide in the pair details about their lives.

Handsome Dan was first dubbed Yale’s mascot in the early 1890s, making Yale the first American college with a living animal as a mascot, according to a University article.

Correction, Nov. 4: An earlier version of this article misstated the time when Bárbara Cruvinel Santiago bought her dog Fubá; it was three years ago, not last year. The article has also been corrected to include both of Cruvinel Santiago’s last names.