It’s Confirmed: I Love Dogs

Betsy Rosenfeld Class of 1995'ish

I went back to visit my alma mater, The University of Pennsylvania last week and in the few short hours I was there, I had one of those “DUH” realizations. That just makes you kind of laugh at yourself that you have missed such an obvious truth for so long. In this case, it was my truth that I love dogs, and how much their sheer presence impacts me.

I was not exactly a good student in college. I worked harder at not studying than I would have had to if I had just done the assigned work. But truly, I kind of hated the school part of school. Sitting still, reading endless pages of meaningless (or what I assumed would have been meaningless as I didn’t read them) assigned texts and writing papers in stodgy academic speak… YUCK. Instead I concentrated on boys, parties, and manipulating the PENN educational system to my benefit…who else turned 3 weeks in Greece and Turkey (including 5 days on a cruise) into 2 classes-worth of credits.

Halloween 1993

In the midst of this mire of academic waste, sorry mom and dad, a few classes do stand out… European Film… it reminded me of my high school film class at Crossroads, and my favorite teacher Jim Hosney. Women in Film because I dated my T.A. (technically after I turned in my last paper but I did get an A-) and finally a Communication class my senior year about First Amendment and Free Speech.

I always think of that class as a time when I actually did the assigned reading and participated in class. (As an aside, Elizabeth Banks was also in that class.) While I happen to now work for a first amendment scholar (Tracy Westen at the Center for Governmental Studies www.cgs.org) it doesn’t have much to with my later use of the material. To tell you truth I kind of never thought much about why I decided to pay attention in that class, that is not until last week’s visit to PENN when I felt compelled to seek out the professor of that class. Dr. Carolyn Marvin did I finally make the connection.

Over coffee, I showed her my book and we talked about what I’d been doing for the last (gasp) 14 years.

If you’re still reading, you’re probably wondering what the hell this has to do with my love of dogs. Well, Dr. Marvin aside from being an amazingly dynamic woman with a fantastic southern accent and a sassy attitude who taught an amazing class, she had a German Shepherd named Megan that came to class each week.

I of course remembered Megan fondly– she was an older shepherd girl with a fluffy coat belly made for tummy rubs—however it wasn’t until Dr. Marvin jokingly suggested that maybe it was Megan that helped me concentrate in her class that I made the connection.

Could it be that having a Megan in class pushed things over the top for me? Could being able to pet her while listening to a lecture, or give her a quick pat before taking a test have put me at ease and lessened the stress of school for me enough that I got past my otherwise ADD approach to school?

Abso-effin-lutely.

Just as dogs just have a calming presence for heart patients, for me, the presence of a dog can make you, or at least me, go above and beyond where I might have otherwise stopped. And nothing is a better testament to that than my book, The Complete Single’s Guide to Being A Dog Owner.

The Complete Single's Guide to Being A Dog Owner

For a girl who would have an anxiety attack about writing a 1000 word paper in school, I turned in the equivalent of 183 such papers when turning in my manuscript. And they were good papers too!

So I guess the moral of this little story is for the love of a good dog you can do almost anything!

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