If we’re going to let college students borrow drones, why stop there? Why not have loaner puppies?

Cory Weinberg of Bloomberg Business Week reports.

Loaner Puppies: The Latest Elite College Perk

At a certain type of college, students have come to expect coddling. Perks that enhance campus life, such as maid service, gyms with lazy rivers, rock-climbing walls, and university-provided laptops have been the subject of many a listicle. Now discerning applicants to top-ranked universities might well ask: How’s the puppy access?

Schools including Harvard and Yale have begun to house therapy dogs—calm canines traditionally used to comfort elderly or sick people in institutions—giving a cuddly reprieve to some of the country’s most stressed-out students. Harvard Medical School’s library has a Shih Tzu named Cooper, available for playtime with students two days a week. Cooper has his own reservation page on Harvard Library’s website. “He enjoys fetching his squeaky toys and stuffed animals, as well as a good game of tug. Should you have a good cry or even feign a whimper near Coop, you are guaranteed to get lots of kisses,” according to his owner’s description.

Yale University brought in a therapy dog named Finn to hang out with students at its medical school this year, joining the law school’s dog, Monty, who’s been on campus since 2011.

Monty, a certified therapy dog who is hypoallergenic, was so popular that Yale students sat on wait lists for half-hour sessions to play with him, wrote librarians Julian Aiken and Femi Cadmus in a 2011 report. Dog ownership requires effort, but the work pays off in loyalty to the library: “While [the dog therapy program] exacts a substantial investment of time and resources, if carefully planned out it yields excellent results in terms of solidifying relationships with one most important library patron base—students,” they wrote.