Furry Friends for Finals Week
Students petting puppies at the event. Credit: Abigail Taylor '25
In collaboration with the Fox P.A.W. Club, the Marist College Student Government Association Academic Affairs Board invited puppies from the Hudson Valley Animal Rescue and Sanctuary to help boost student morale prior to finals week.
HVARS is a non-profit animal rescue and rehabilitation center that also offers low-cost veterinary service clinics to the community. HVARS anticipated coming to Marist because they believed such an event would help them get their puppies adopted.
“We thought that bringing puppies on campus would help relieve the stress that students are feeling when it comes to exams, but we also really wanted to help the shelter out by raising awareness and hopefully getting them some donations,” said Academic Affairs Board member Abigail Oliveros ‘26.
Credit: Abigail Taylor '25
The sanctuary brought three puppies to campus to play with the students. Two of the puppies ran around and played in an enclosure, while Ophelia, the other dog, walked around on a leash.
Ophelia was dressed in shark pajamas to protect her almost-healed scars from a recent surgery. After having a litter of puppies, Ophelia had mastitis and had surgery on her mammary glands, but she is now recovering and doing much better, according to HVARS volunteer Donna Krog.
As a non-profit, all of the donations that come through the clinic go towards the animals, so HVARS heavily relies on volunteer work to continue its mission. Krog has been volunteering at HVARS for about two years as a dog walker. Because she’s retired, she is able to spend a couple of days a week volunteering at the sanctuary.
“We have a good team of volunteers that come,” said Krog. “The dogs get out multiple times a day, and they go and play, and they go for walks.” Krog also explained how bringing the puppies to campus is good exposure for them and HVARS, but they are really just happy to do an event like this for the students.
HVARS began its mission to provide locals with affordable vet care as a mobile hospital in 2011. This allowed people to bring their pets to get low-cost spaying and neutering services and get vaccinated. By 2015, HVARS opened its stationary hospital by renovating an old barn. Now, they are a multi-vet facility that offers a wide variety of services, such as wellness clinics, complex surgeries, dental, x-rays, bloodwork and more.
According to their website, HVARS adopts over 1,200 animals annually, and the volunteer-run wildlife rehabilitation center takes in about 300 injured wild animals annually.
In addition to the puppies that visited campus, HVARS lends a helping hand to wildlife, such as raccoons, possums, skunks, foxes and woodchucks, with the help of the four New York State wildlife and rabies vector species licensed rehabilitators on staff. Krog also noted that they have pigs, goats, donkeys and a very large cow named Harvey. HVARS is always looking for volunteers like Krog, which multiple students expressed interest in.
“We did this to bring joy to people during finals because everyone is stressed right now,” said Ana Domenici ‘27, SGA Academic Affairs board deputy. “Between this and the good weather, the joy is coming back.”