{"id":38113,"date":"2025-11-08T00:07:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T00:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/38113\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T00:07:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T00:07:18","slug":"students-and-their-pets-gather-for-eckerd-colleges-annual-pet-blessing-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/38113\/","title":{"rendered":"Students and their pets gather For Eckerd College\u2019s Annual Pet Blessing &#8211; News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For this reason, Cole appreciates the friendly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eckerd.edu\/housing\/pet-life\/policy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">pet policy<\/a> at Eckerd.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[The pet policy] is really cool because, you know, folks leave home and that transition can be hard, and to be able to have that companionship of animals seems to me to be just a really natural way to make college feel like home,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n<p>This sentiment is shared by Hoppie, who noted the importance for students to become independent and responsible\u2014both traits can be fostered through owning pets.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlso, [having pets] offers a really good physical, emotional and mental release from stress,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p>The inclusion of pets in campus life stretches far beyond the pet blessing. In fact, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eckerd.edu\/housing\/pet-life\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pet Life<\/a>, a department at Eckerd dedicated to registering animals, recently held a Halloween costume contest for pets.<\/p>\n<p>Hoppie recalled dressing her snakes up for the occasion during her first year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI dressed Soup up as a witch and he had a very tiny paper hat that was very delicately taped onto his head\u2026 I made a tiny broom out of a single paperclip and a little piece of felt,\u201d she explained. \u201cAnd I took him to class with me and I was a witch as well\u2026 I think that was one of my fondest memories.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It is a common sight to see dogs walking along South Beach and students introducing their turtles, fish, birds, and hamsters to their peers. It is simply a part of the Eckerd culture and the Pet Blessing is merely an example of that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For this reason, Cole appreciates the friendly pet policy at Eckerd. \u201c[The pet policy] is really cool because,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-38113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}