Students own unusual pets

At first, sophomore Crystal Duey's house seems like any other college student's. The entrance leads to a living room. Continuing straight leads to the kitchen. Take a left, however, and you find yourself in a stable-esque sunroom - a hay-filled, wooden-encased, half window room that smells like… horse.

Duey has been riding horses since she was three years old and has owned horses since she was 13. But it wasn't until last spring that Duey bought Knight, her very own American Miniature Horse.

Knight is big for his species - approximately 33 inches tall at the withers (the horse's shoulder blades) - whereas the average is about 30 inches, Duey said. He looks like a huge, shaggy dog from a distance and like an incredibly small pony up close.

"Originally, it was just almost a stupid idea, kind of," Duey said. "I wanted to have a miniature horse to keep in the house, but I wanted a tiny one. And I went with my [roommate] to look at horses at her trainer family's house - her family shows miniature horses -  and I ended up with this one, and he's huge, but he's well-behaved."

After buying Knight, Duey then had to find roommates and a house with a big yard, doing the process backwards, she said. Her backyard has two parts: A small yard behind the house is connected by a gate leading to a side lot, big enough to fit another house and yard.

"It's perfect for a miniature horse," Duey said. "At the University Farm, the students' horses don't even have this much room in their turnout pen, and they have to share."

Horses have to be fed at the same time each day, or they'll get colic (a horse stomachache), she said. But otherwise, they're pretty low-maintenance: Like dogs, they generally just need water, food and exercise.

However, Duey and one of her roommates are looking forward to one perk from Knight, which the normal pet dog couldn't live up to.

"We wanna train him to drive [sleds]," Duey said. "That way we can go sledding in the winter."

Pets purchased by other students were a bit more spontaneous.

Senior Ryan Rose and his friends were looking around at Walmart the spring of last year, when they saw a dinosaur eel, the coolest thing there, he said.

"We just saw him at Walmart, and we fell in love," Rose said.

He then did research on the eels and found some interesting facts.

"The Pentagon used his scale style to make bomb-proof armor," Rose said. "Like the way his scales are together… it's pretty strong. [They] used that design to make bomb-proof armor for soldiers."

Dinosaur eels are also one of the few fish that have lungs, so they can survive out of water as long as they stay wet, he said.

"There's all kinds of horror stories online," Rose said. "That was kind of the appeal to buying it, too, 'cause it's like, ‘Aw, this is awesome. It could jump out of my tank and kill me in my sleep.'"

With that in mind, he bought what was to be named Joseph Cornelius Rose-Hartman-Campbell the First, also known as Neil.

"Joseph Cornelius sounded cool," Rose said. "And then Rose-Hartman-Campbell are the last names of me, my girlfriend and [my friend] Michael."

Neil only lived one year, probably due to frequent traveling and a small tank.

Although the tank was small, it didn't lack character.

"All I had was rocks, we didn't have scenery or anything for him," Rose said. "So we took some Legos, we put boiling water over them to sterilize them and built giant buildings. Michael built a coliseum thing."

He said Neil liked to burrow under the palaces rather than hang out in them, but nonetheless it spiced up the tank.

Rose said Neil's death has brought dark times.

"Most people liked him," Rose said. "He was surprisingly friendly and attentive for a fish. He - like, most other fish are kind of just there - but he would like, come up to the glass, and if you put your finger there, he would follow [it] around. He was actually kind [of] fun. He was my homework buddy."

Duey and Rose aren't the only students to have owned interesting pets.

Senior Hillary Betzen's dad was a veterinarian, so she's been around animals her whole life, from farm animals such as goats to random pets  such as chinchillas.

She said she moved off campus her senior year specifically to have a pet, preferably a cat. However, one of her roommates was allergic to cats, and all of her roommates were opposed to her getting a snake. Her last option, the hedgehog, was a winner with her roommates.

"I had remembered that I always wanted a hedgehog when I was really little," Betzen said. "I always thought they were cool in the pet stores."

Her multi-colored hedgehog is named after a "Lord of the Rings" hobbit, Bilbo.

"He has like this little house that he stays in, and like, a lot of times, especially during the day, he doesn't like to come out of the house," Betzen said. "I have to take the house off of him, and he's like the hobbit, Bilbo, that doesn't want to leave."

Betzen was lucky to be able to get Bilbo - hedgehogs are currently hard to come by and are getting expensive, she said. She called a local pet store, Jungle of Joys, and they didn't have any. A week later, the store called to tell her that someone was trying to get rid of theirs, so they met up.

Betzen said it took Bilbo a while to get used to being handled, but one of her favorite things about him is his spines.

"That's actually, I think, the fun thing about him - texture and stuff," Betzen said. "I'm a very tactile person. It's fun to pet him."

Her other favorite part about Bilbo is his diet. Along with normal hedgehog food and cat food, he eats worms.

"They're still alive, and that's just one of my favorite things," Betzen said. "Because you can pick it up and feed it to him, and he grabs it and you can hear it crunch and stuff, most friends are grossed out by it."