It’s not uncommon to find a furry friend walking along the science building or taking a stroll beside the library. Juniata’s campus is a very pet friendly environment, I mean come on, who wouldn’t want to play fetch on all that freshly cut green grass of the quad?

It was a Friday, the third Friday of classes to be exact. Things were finally starting to fall into a pace. I walked into my last class of the day, feeling the drag of a Friday afternoon. I realized everyone else was really feeling this drag, too.

Poetry, in my opinion, is a great class to end on. It’s a wonderful wind down after a week full of fast paced, non-stop, college life. Despite my positive feelings towards this class, it’s still an obligation that isn’t quite Grey’s Anatomy and so I took my book out with a sigh, watching the minute’s tick until we began.

As we waited for a few more people to trickle in, a student came running into the classroom out of breath. “Puppies!” she shouted, “There are puppies!”

“Puppies?” my professor exclaimed? “What do you mean puppies? Where?” I think I could tell he was trying to contain excitement.

“Outside! By the Founders Fountain! Can we go? Please?”

Everyone stared at my professor waiting for a response. Awkward seconds passed. “Puppies don’t have anything to do with poetry…” he began. More awkward seconds.

“Okay. Quickly.”

Then suddenly, the Friday drag was lifted. Everyone jumped, and I mean jumped from their seats, including the professor, out and down the stairway to the fountain and onto the grass to play with and love the multiple, freshly born puppies.

The first ten minutes of poetry that day were passing puppies around, holding, snuggling, and watching my professor tell them how much he loved them. A memory, I’ll never quite forget. A memory of Juniata I hold near and dear to my heart. An experience I don’t think I’d get in any other poetry class anywhere else.