“Oh, I love seeing teachers outside of school. It’s like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs,” says Janis Ian from the movie Mean Girls. A while ago a friend told me how unfathomable to her it was that some teachers were able to go to bed at 9, when the average high school student finds themselves sleeping much, much later. Perhaps this is what causes Janis and the student body of her school to view teachers with such an alien fascination. At least for the teachers at SAS, however, students routinely engage with teachers in situations outside the classroom, from the sports fields and gyms to various interest clubs. 

Pets are just one more thing that connects teacher and student interests together. Studies have shown that playing with dogs or cats reduce our stress hormones and our blood pressure, and enhance our mood. Just like some students may return from a long day of classwork and bury their nose in their dog’s fur or try to win the affections of a particularly standoffish house cat, teachers, too, can seek stress relief from their pets. 

I interviewed science teacher Ms Young about her poodle Nunu, whom she shares with Mr Clapp, learning support teacher Mr Krumland about his basset hound Xiaolong, high school principal Dr Lee about his five animals Cato, Toast, Olive, Bastet, and Fabienne (whom he names “his private zoo”), and english teacher Mr Gertzfield about his two cats, Daisy and Tumble.

Learning about all the intricacies of their pets’ personalities is a continuous journey in and of itself. “Nunu has highs and lows,” says Ms Young. When he’s on a high, he jumps around and bites people’s toes. When down on a low, he sits on his bottom, strangely humanoid, on a sofa. Xiaolong, while stockier and always bearing the appearance of extreme sleepiness with her bloodshot eyes and droopy ears, shows her liveliness in a different way. “Her purpose in life is to eat,” says Mr Krumland. The basset hound has almost a magical ability to get food out of her reach, squirming relentlessly until she acquires her target. For Mr Gertzfield, his two cats Daisy and Tumble are mother and son. Daisy is “fat and lazy,” he describes, while Tumble has feline cerebral palsy and cannot control his hind legs. It doesn’t, however, stop any of his yowling. During the entire progression of distance learning two years ago, Mr Gertzfield’s English 10 class could hear Tumble’s incessant yowling in the background of Mr Gertzfield’s teaching the whole 40-minute class. And it was present every class for a solid three months. 

Each of Dr Lee’s animals has carved out a peculiar dynamic in his household. In order of their joining the family, there is Cato the cat, Toast the dog, Olive the cat, Bastet the cat, and Fabienne (or Fabi) the dog. While Olive and Toast get along fine for being a cat-and-dog duo, and Toast is very extroverted around humans, Dr Lee describes Cato as a “dowager empress” –– antisocial and a destroyer of curtains. He found the idea for her name in two places: first, in the Pink Panther movie, released in 1984 (no, not the cartoon featuring a literal pink panther), a butler by the name of Cato Fong attacks protagonist Clouseau at random, so that Clouseau can keep his martial arts skills refined. The second comes from roman statesman Cato the Elder, who ended every speech in the senate with, “Carthage must be destroyed.” Whether it’s attacking Dr Lee’s feet or mauling some curtains, Cato the cat possessed a destructiveness worthy of her namesakes.

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When I interviewed Mr Gertzfield last about his two cats, I asked about his recent comment to send Tumble away because of his constant yowling.

“That was a joke,” Mr Gertzfield quickly says. 

It may be tough love from their owners (Mr Krumland also calls Xiaolong “fat,” or “compact” jokingly), but whenever the dogs are brought to school, students adore them––rushing over to pet them, or volunteering to walk them throughout the school grounds. After hearing the news that Dr Lee got married over the summer, a collective gasp and aww’s sounded throughout the PAC as students viewed the picture of Dr Lee and his wife, with their five photoshopped pets also gracing the picture.

The luxury of private, international schools allows students to bond with teachers outside of the classroom and avoid thoughts of what Janis Ian had when seeing a teacher in public (with at most a sudden urge to dive into a bush). What’s more, it also allows students to know their teachers better, including anecdotes here and there about their pets.