Rabbits in college

This article discusses rabbit ownership for college students. Discussion of college pet policies, common concerns, and examples of dormitory rabbit housing.

Rabbits are the #1 most abandoned pet in the U.S., so it’s important to consider your rabbit’s future wisely when you’re leaving for college. There are several options, but you should choose the scenario that provides the best care for your rabbit according to your personal circumstances. This article is geared for colleges and universities in the United States that require a rabbit owner to move out of their family home to attend.

In short, many college students can safely and responsibly bring their rabbit to college or become a new rabbit owner in college. However, your school may have policies that make this impossible beyond your control. You must do careful research on your own to verify the realities of pet ownership at your school and avoid lifestyles that contradict with rabbit ownership.

Are rabbits allowed in college?
Pet rules vary widely depending on your institution. It’s important to take early action so that you can try to accommodate your pet within school guidelines. Nominally, schools allow rabbits as “emotional support animals”, or ESAs. However, ESAs are a restricted status and you cannot declare a rabbit as an ESA without submitting valid paperwork to your institution for review. If you qualify for it, ESA status can be a good way to gain more autonomy over your rabbit’s protection. You should talk to your school about how ESA status impacts your room selection, and if you are entitled to a room that has favorable amenities to keep a rabbit comfortable (i.e., air conditioning, more space, no roommates, quiet dorm).

Many schools also allow rabbits without accommodations. You should ask current students if there are any rabbit owners on campus. School administration may be unaware of the campus pet policy or the frequency of rabbit ownership on campus. If you can’t find a student pet owner, find a senior dean or administrator who is familiar with the school’s pet policy. The published pet policy may not actually be enforced, so a good administrator should be able to tell you how and when the policy is enforced. It is not recommended to bring a rabbit to college if you intend to live on-campus and your school’s policy is to forcibly remove animals in student housing.

Even if rabbits aren’t allowed on-campus, students can usually choose to live off-campus in unaffiliated apartments or subleases nearby. These offer more flexibility with pet ownership and are usually cheaper, but require you to commute and live away from social events. You should browse Facebook groups for off-campus housing at your school. Also explore apartment listing websites for rabbit-friendly rentals.

If you are an international student, review your home country’s policy on travel with rabbits, whether a quarantine period is required for pets entering or leaving your country, or if your visa restricts you from rabbit-owning necessities like earning income or applying for off-campus housing if on-campus rabbits are not allowed.

You will travel at least four times a year with your rabbit (to/from winter break, to/from summer break) unless you have special exemption to stay on campus year-round. Research methods of traveling with a rabbit to choose an option that is safe and affordable for your situation.

For interstate travel within the U.S., review your college state’s travel guidelines to see if you need special paperwork to bring a rabbit to your destination.

Can I have my rabbit secretly?
Do not attempt to have rabbits on-campus in secret if you are unfamiliar with the campus culture surrounding pets. You will be unprepared in the event of RA room inspections, fire drills, roommate allergies. Being discovered with a rabbit under a strict pet policy puts your rabbit in danger of being hurt or forcibly abandoned.

Even if you’re familiar with the campus pet policy, you should still consider disclosing your rabbit to relevant parties and try to reduce the negative impact of your rabbit on the community. Informing the administration or trusted student leadership can give you advanced notice about events that might jeopardize your rabbit’s welfare and plan accordingly. Get advanced notice of any room inspections, fire drills, or dorm pranks so you can move your rabbit to a safe location in advance.

College dorms can be highly unpredictable environments with unspoken cultural rules that may go against rabbit housing preferences. If you intend to keep a rabbit secretly, you forfeit any protection from the school when “harmless” campus culture rises to the level of animal abuse, such as harming or kidnapping your rabbit in a school prank ("Horrible senior 'pranks' results in animal abuse", ). Transparent pet-friendly housing on campus makes it easier to find accommodations where your rabbit will be welcomed and respected by your neighbors.

A rabbit that is known to the community can be a rabbit that is beloved and supported by your peers, even featured on the campus newspaper. College students often miss their family pets when they leave for college, so an on-campus rabbit provides homesick students with a cute animal to spoil and coddle. Pets in college are frequently the recipients of homemade toys, hides, financial support, and offers to petsit for cheap. While you should be clear about your boundaries with unsolicited gifts or services for your rabbit, it is still a huge source of support that becomes more difficult to access if you keep your rabbit a secret.

Deciding to bring your rabbit to college
Owning a rabbit in college shares a lot of the same considerations as owning a rabbit anywhere else, but your options may be more limited since you are likely less financially secure and less secure in your housing options than the average rabbit owner. If you are considering becoming a first-time rabbit owner, please review the New Rabbit Owner Primer.

Young adults can find it challenging to provide a pet with a stable home environment when they themselves are experiencing an unstable life transition. However, pet ownership can also be deeply integral to your adult identity. If you worry about your quality of life in college without pet ownership, then you should seriously consider if you can have a rabbit in college. Like any other college hobby, you can become more isolated or more social through having rabbits. Certainly your finances will be negatively impacted. Furthermore, many of your challenges will be unique to your own resources, circumstances, and school policies. Under the right circumstances and taking the right precautionary measures, you can absolutely have a rabbit in college.

Location
Can you transport your rabbit to college? If you need to fly to your college town, see if there are any flights connecting your hometown and your college town on rabbit-friendly airlines (main article: Travel). Few airlines allow rabbits in the cabin, so this may severely limit your options. It’s also expensive to fly with rabbits. Most students travel to/from their hometown twice a year for summer and winter break. Driving offers more flexibility and savings for travel accommodations, but takes longer.

Your college town should have access to an exotic veterinarian, ideally 24-hour access via an emergency vet. If you do not have a driver’s license, your exotic veterinarian should be accessible by public transportation or you should account for the price of taxis or rideshares into your veterinary budget. You should not have a rabbit in college if you do not have a way to bring your rabbit to the vet.

It’s also helpful to have a rabbit rescue within driving distance for hay, rabbit toys, boarding, grooming, and bonding services.

Finances
Main article: Costs of rabbit ownership

You should set aside a few hundred to a few thousand dollars of savings for rabbit healthcare each year, depending on the health of your rabbit and the cost of living in your college town. If you are able, talk to your parents about whether they would provide a safety net to cover your bills if you ever run out of money for veterinary expenses. You should also budget for hay, pellets, and rabbit enclosure supplies. If you plan to fly to/from college with your rabbits, factor pet travel expenses into your budget.

Picking up part-time, flexible-hour jobs around campus such as grading, tutoring, deliveries, or service desks can provide extra protection to replenish your emergency fund, even if you are a full-time student.

If you are already a student and planning to become a new owner, you will save money by adopting an adult, spayed/neutered rabbit from a rescue shelter. Spay/neuter is essential for your rabbit’s quality of life and good behavior, and costs several hundred dollars. Adopting a fixed rabbit offloads the cost of surgery onto the rescue. Thoroughly research before adopting a rabbit so you don’t waste money on unsuitable rabbit supplies like cages and improper food.

Lifestyle
A rabbit is a serious commitment that can take time away from your social and professional opportunities but may offer personal joy and fulfillment through animal care. Ask yourself if you want to be a rabbit owner, or if you merely want to have access to a cute rabbit. You can fulfill yourself with animal interaction by volunteering at a rescue shelter, becoming roommates with a pet owner, or working as a petsitter in your college town. This allows you to practice animal care without much financial or long-term commitment. If you do not already own a rabbit, you should explore these animal work opportunities before deciding whether a rabbit is right for you.

Certain lifestyles in college are incompatible with owning a rabbit. If you plan to do any of the following, you should reconsider having a rabbit in college:
 * Study abroad
 * Prank / party culture
 * Frequent short-term travel (i.e., ski trips, camping trips, spring break trips, business conferences)
 * On-campus housing with a strict no-pets policy
 * Greek life
 * Excessive drug use

Deciding not to bring your rabbit
If you have a rabbit and decide you are unable to bring them to college, then carefully consider your options.

If you are leaving your rabbit in the care of your parents, your parents should be enthusiastic participants in all aspects of your rabbit’s life, including healthcare, proper housing, social wellbeing, proper diet, and not leaving the rabbit unattended for more than 12 hours. Parents who do not have much rabbit experience should be enthusiastic to learn out of love for the rabbit, not merely out of promises to you. An unenthusiastic caregiver is a sloppy and unreliable one. Be aware that this is a huge responsibility to put on any indiviudal, not just your parents. Not everyone would choose to own a rabbit if given the opportunity, and you cannot force your parents to fulfill that role if they are uncertain.

If your parents are not promising candidates, you should ask family and friends, then reach out to rescue shelter or foster home programs. Main article: Rehoming your rabbit

Off-Campus Housing
Off-campus housing is the most straightforward way to have a rabbit in college. This usually involves finding your own apartment or sublease and commuting to campus for class. Even if your school forbids rabbits on campus, you can usually find a pet-friendly housing option in the community.

Warning: some schools require students to live on-campus for some of their enrollment. Find out if you need a special exemption to live off-campus for your freshman year.

You can start looking for leases on popular apartment listing websites, but make sure you ask around the student body to see if any apartments or leasing agents have a bad reputation in the area, or if some places are known to be pet-friendly. Schools may also have Facebook groups for enrolled students to find housing or roommates off-campus.

Living off-campus has considerable advantages:
 * Is usually cheaper, but the opposite may be true in some situations
 * Easier to find quiet, air-conditioned rooms
 * More space than a dorm room, easier to free-roam
 * More private; no RA room inspections, no party or prank culture
 * Multiple rooms means the ability to set up neutral territory to bond additional rabbits

But also some drawbacks:
 * Be prepared to commute. Ideally you have your own car in case of veterinary emergencies
 * Isolated from campus life and social opportunities somewhat
 * Cannot rely on school service departments for room repairs
 * More independence means more responsibility to handle rent and utilities.
 * Not pre-furnished

Try to negotiate a lease that lasts for the duration of the school year (i.e., not summer). Even if you think you’re staying on-campus over the summer, you don’t want to be locked into multiple leases if you need to move to another location for your summer job.

On-Campus Housing
At first, college dorms may seem like a daunting place to house rabbits. One-person dorm rooms are 100-150 square feet, whereas two-person rooms are 200-300 square feet. With careful planning, even the smallest rooms can comfortably accommodate a rabbit.

If your school allows rabbits on-campus through ESA status or the campus pet policy, you can absolutely have a rabbit in dorm rooms. You just need to be careful with selecting your room, bunny-proofing your room, following safety precautions, and reserving enough space for your rabbit to live comfortably.

On-campus housing has its own advantages:
 * Access to school maintenance staff to fix broken air conditioning, plumbing, etc
 * Proximity to laundry machines
 * Proximity to social events and professional development
 * Water and utilities pre-paid
 * Easy to enlist trusted friends to petsit during short-term travel
 * Somewhat pre-furnished for easy move-in and bunny-proofing
 * Easy to make friends with animal-lovers on campus

But also drawbacks:
 * Often unairconditioned
 * Usually more expensive
 * Smaller living accommodations
 * Roommates often required for some or all years (unless you have disability accomodations)
 * Competitive room selection process. Pet-friendly rooms in short supply
 * Fire drills
 * Possibly RA room inspections
 * Student parties and pranks
 * No neutral territory to bond additional rabbits
 * Proximity to drug use

Competing for good dorms
Your college will have a number of different dorms, with different amenities, policies, and student cultures attached. Even if your school allows rabbits, it may only be practical or allowed for a small selection of dorms or floors. Dorm selection is also very competitive since there is rarely enough housing for everyone that needs it. If you can’t live off-campus, you need to fight for advantages that ensure you and your bunny will have a place to live.

If your rabbit is an ESA, you should be able to apply for a room through the disability & accommodations office. This may involve pre-placing you into a room that fits your description. Review the list of favorable vs. unfavorable dorm traits when communicating with the accommodations office.

Make friends with an RA or dorm president. RAs are guaranteed housing in better-than-average rooms, so they are good candidates to be bunny roommates. At some schools, upperclassmen also get seniority with housing selection and also make good roommates as a result.

Find your roommates early. Don’t wait until Spring to start learning about the room selection process. Strategies to survive room draw are often not public knowledge, but spread by word-of-mouth. Schools may also have Facebook groups for enrolled students to find housing or roommates on campus. Bunny-friendly rooms are often for most competitive and coveted, so you should become an expert in the room selection process to give yourself the best chance for success.

Favorable dorm traits:
 * Good air conditioning
 * Allows pets / not allergy-restricted
 * Single rooms
 * Quiet dorm culture (i.e., not fraternities, sororities, or party dorms)
 * Windows that don’t get direct sunlight (can overheat rooms)
 * Outdoor trash bins (to dump out dirty litterboxes)
 * Non-smoking floor (central air conditioning may move smoky air between rooms)
 * Communal kitchens to refrigerate rabbit vegetables
 * Close street access for easy vet travel

Unfavorable dorm traits:
 * No air conditioning
 * Doubles or triples (see: roommates)
 * Party dorm or greek life
 * Lax drug policy
 * Allergy-restricted
 * Room opens to courtyard, motel-style (rabbit escapes are more risky)