Vital statistics: dogs on campus

I can wrangle a dorm bolster with the best of them.

Having been left out of a party celebrating the graduation of a friend from the Middlesex School in Concord, I thought I'd bolster my complaining with some statistics that might open the door to my attendance at future events.

Right up there, on the Facts and Figures page just under the number of AP courses (22) and the percentage of faculty with advanced degrees, is the number of faculty dogs on the MX campus: 27. Could pets on campus be a trend? Turns out I'm on the tail end of this one:  Petside.com puts out a yearly list of top 10 pet-friendly colleges (at my sister's school, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which did not make the list, one can have fish in a tank of 10 gallons or less). She was tempted by MIT's cat policy, though I nixed that idea. Bird-loving undergrads might appreciate the policy at Wellesley College that allows parakeets and canaries, but no cats.

Other pet-friendly schools: Sweet Briar, in Virginia, where you can board your own horse; Caltech, where two cats are permitted; Eckerd College, in Florida, which apparently accepts nearly any kind of pet—except ones as large as moi: I'm about 50 lbs over the weight limit. Plus, it's too hot for me down there.