Many students are welcomed home by the sound of scrambling paws scraping the floor, as their dogs or cats dash to the door to greet them.

However, some people at Bowie have more unique pets waiting at home, including a prairie dog, a squirrel, and a sugar glider.

Due to an impulse buy, senior Cameron Pyka has owned a prairie dog for almost a year.

“I was at the mall,” Pyka said. “The pet store had prairie dogs in front of it. I decided that prairie dogs were cool animals since I’ve always seen them at zoos, and I just decided to get one.”

Despite her quick decision to get a prairie dog, Pyka does not regret it.

“She’s a cool animal,” Pyka said. “She’s really loving. She’s like a big hamster, and she can run around the house. She stands on her hind legs, which is really cute and funny, and she sleeps with me sometimes too.”

People often have mixed reactions to her having a prairie dog.

“They always say ‘oh my gosh, you have a squirrel?’ or ‘you have a groundhog?’,” Pyka said. “Everybody’s always really surprised because they think it’s a huge rat, and then when they realize they’re like ‘oh wow, that’s awesome.’”

Part of the confusion people have with what animal she has is due to her name.

“Her name is Squirrel,” Pyka said. “It confuses little kids, which is the reason [why I named her that].”

Pyka has a lot of fond memories of Squirrel.

“She likes to eat animal crackers,” Pyka said. “I was feeding her an animal cracker once and the real dog came and tried to take it from her. She grabbed the cracker and pulled it away from him, and it was really funny. It was probably my favorite memory.”

Pyka’s other pets get along really well with Squirrel.

“I have two cats too, and the cat plays with her,” Pyka said. “He fake kills her, and then she acts like she’s dead, then gets up and runs around again. All the animals love her.”

Owning a prairie dog like Squirrel comes with lots of adorable moments, but also lots of responsibility.

“She’s tearing up the house,” Pyka said. “She chews through everything because she’s like a huge rat that runs through the house. Also, she needs lots of attention. She can get depression if I’m gone, since I’m her owner. If I were to give her away, she’d get depression. She also lives for fifteen years.”

Charles Cowey, an Algebra II teacher, has an actual squirrel that he spends time with at his house.

“The first time I got a squirrel to crawl up my leg was fun, but scary,” Cowey said. “I didn’t think a squirrel was gonna climb up my leg, but she did. She crawls up the chair and sits on the chair on the patio. She’ll sit on the arm of the chair while I eat peanuts and I’ll put a peanut down for her.”

Despite the squirrel’s friendliness, she doesn’t let him hold her.

“It’s amazing how trusting they are,” Cowey said. “But she won’t really let me touch her. Whenever I hold a peanut out she’ll put a hand on my finger and take the peanut out of my finger, but she don’t want to be touched and I don’t wanna get bit.”

The squirrel comes around his house frequently.

“If I go out and sit on the front porch, [she comes out] within twenty minutes or so,” Cowey said. “Especially if I take the jar of peanuts and rattle them. She comes maybe four, five, eight times a week.”

This is the third squirrel Cowey has bonded with.

“I know the first two squirrels were like mom and daughter, but the third one I don’t know what relation, if any, it has to the other two,” Cowey said. “There are a bunch of different nests, squirrel nests, around the house, but which one this one lives in, not a clue.”

Senior Justin Whited also owns unique pets: two sugar gliders.

“I got into sugar gliders during freshman year, but I didn’t get them until junior year,” Whited said. “I was always really into exotic animals, and sugar gliders are really cool.”

Whited enjoys raising his sugar gliders.

“They’re pretty normal when it compares to raising normal pets, but the only difference is they can glide and run around your house,” Whited said. “They’re also pretty smart; they compare to a dog, you can train them. It’s like a normal pet, but tiny.”

Being smart also allows them to get into lots of mischief.

“They’re really smart so they learned how to open the cage,” Whited said. “They open it a lot, and they ate all the dog food once. They can get out of their cage pretty easy now.”

With owning any pets, they need to be carefully cared for.

“They always want to be with you,” Whited said. “They can get really depressed if they don’t have a partner to live with or they’re not taken care of.”