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Get the most interesting and important stories from the University of Pittsburgh.If you wanted to see high fashion on campus this week, you didn’t have to look any further than the main floor of the Cathedral. Well, no, now look down a little. There you go.
Pitt’s furriest community members descend on the Cathedral of Learning each Tuesday evening at 7 p.m., and this week they took the opportunity to haunt campus in their Halloween costumes.
While therapy dogs have been bringing joy to Pitt students for decades, like so many treasured traditions, the pandemic interrupted the canine calendar in March 2020. Due to Pitt’s health rules, groups without a University affiliation were not able to hold events on campus. Now, though, students are organizing an official club to make sure Pitt never has a paucity of pups again.
“To be on campus with all the COVID rules, they need an organization here at the school,” said Omkar Betsur, a sophomore biological sciences major in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences and president of the proposed club. After hearing a pitch from club advisor Jennifer Silk, a Pitt professor of psychology, Betsur was one of several students who stepped up to run the group. They haven’t had a hard time finding interest — more than 200 students are now on their email list, Betsur said.
The group is waiting on an official club designation for now, but they already have big plans to leverage students’ love of pups for good, including fundraisers and volunteer events with the Humane Animal Rescue. “We are just so committed to this one thing: the dogs,” Betsur said.
Marsha Robbins (A&S ’92, EDUC ’94G), who works with the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society, has spearheaded the much-beloved event for 20 years. “It’s just really nice to know that there are students who are motivated to work to have us here,” she said. “And they’ve been working so hard.”
Robbins also trains the dogs that visit Pitt, and she noted that it’s not a simple thing.
“All of these dogs are licensed by Therapy Dogs International and have been trained for at least a year,” she said. Of course, it’s more than worth it. “One of the best ways you can spend any time is just sharing your dogs with other people and watching the joy,” she said.
Without further ado, we present Pittwire’s first Hallowoof Fashion Showdown. Click on the camera icons to learn about each frightful floof.
