On Saturday, Feb. 15, David Tuttle, associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students, adopted a new dog named Sochi. She is now available for walks and playtime with students on the Skyline Room balcony.

“We were at the Pearl Farmer’s Market, and they had the Spay Neuter Inject Protect of San Antonio (SNIPSA) event. We saw her, and our family dog died last April and we had to give Jurgens up the previous October,” Tuttle said. “My wife had said, “˜The dog will find us. We won’t find the dog.’ So we hadn’t planned on getting a dog, and we walked past and were just petting dogs and we saw this one. She is just so sweet, and we all just naturally fell in love with her. She picked us.”

According to Tuttle, Sochi is a black labrador mix and is less than two years old, although she has already had one litter of puppies. She was found in a field and had been in foster care for ten months before her adoption. Lack of human contact made her naturally timid and she was unable to recognize her previous name, Ebony. His wife and daughters named her Sochi, inspired by the current Winter Olympics in Russia. However, according to Tuttle, he likes it because it sounds like “so chill.”

“She’s our family dog, and then for me it’s a good way to let students have a therapy dog to just pet. People miss their family pets, and my office [in the upstairs of Coates University Center] gives me an opportunity to have a door right onto the balcony. Students don’t have to come through my office, so it’s low maintenance and they don’t have to schedule a time like we did with Jurgens,” Tuttle said.

Sochi will be available as weather and Tuttle’s schedule permits. There will be a sign downstairs in Coates to notify students on when she will be present.

“She would be sitting at home anyways, so it’s good for her to be here and let people play with her,” Tuttle said. “I met a lot of students last year through Jurgens too, so this is just another way to meet students when they want to come up here and pet her.”