University students find comfort in emotional support animals | News

When she walks into her apartment, Elise Wantling, a sophomore from St. Charles, Missouri, can always count on a warm welcome from her furry, yellow-eyed companion named George.

But the blue-gray manx cat is not the average housepet – he is Wantling’s emotional support animal (ESA).

According to the University’s policy, an ESA “is an animal that provides personal comfort to an individual with a disability residing in University of Kansas Housing.”

An ESA is not a pet, but rather an animal that is able to live with a student, according to Access Specialist Dr. Juliette Loring.

Wantling said she was diagnosed with anxiety and depression during high school and sometimes has stress nightmares. At home, Wantling said there would usually be at least one cat on her bed when she woke up in the night.

She also recalls living alone in a dorm room as a University freshman.

“I didn’t have a roommate [and] I didn’t have a pet, so I would just wake up from these stress nightmares in a new place,” Wantling said. “There was nobody I really felt comfortable talking to, so it just was a very scary situation.”

In the fall of her freshman year, she went through the process of requesting a KU Housing accommodation through the Academic Achievement and Access Center (AAAC), and eventually adopted George from the Lawrence Humane Society.

Although she has since traded her dorm room for an off-campus apartment, she went through the necessary process in order to keep George by her side in her new home.

Wantling has had George for nearly one year, and she said she has found him to help reduce her anxiety and motivate her.

“I have this cat who doesn’t even realize it, but he’s kind of taking care of me,” she said.

Claire Namovich, a third-year student from Holland, Michigan, has also found having an ESA to be beneficial. Namovich lives in an off-campus student apartment and went through the necessary process in order to have an ESA live with her there.

Although she has only had Zaha – her gray Domestic Shorthair cat – for about a month, Namovich said she has already found that her anxiety and anxiety-induced asthma have been reduced.

“I feel like just having her is making me happier, which leads to less medical issues as a whole,” Namovich said.

She said she adopted Zaha while she was in Michigan over the summer.

“That way I could sort of bring something back here that I had a connection with at home,” Namovich said. “Because that’s another part that’s really hard for my anxiety is being so far away from home.”

In order to have an ESA in University housing, students should submit an application to the AAAC. If a student is approved to have an ESA, the student and housing are both notified.

Unlike service dogs, ESAs are not allowed on campus. The University’s policy states that ESAs are an “accommodation for KU Housing only and not permitted in other areas of the University.”

“If a student brings an animal on campus and they haven’t registered it with us it’s an illegal animal,” Loring said. “If they all of a sudden claim it’s an emotional support animal, OK, they’re notified of the process."

A variety of animals can be considered an ESA.

“The benefit of an ESA is from person to person. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a cuddly cat or a cuddly dog, [although] frequently it does," Loring said. "It can be something that emotionally soothes a person [and] makes them feel better.”

—Edited by Wesley Dotson