Paws up for Pokémon

Photos courtesy of Mano Takegami

Walking through the halls of Doti among the crowds of students, there’s a four-legged friend on her way to class. 

Dayzi “started coming to the school when she was six months old,” said Mano Takegami. 

Takegami is a faculty member at Wilkinson College, where she teaches what students have dubbed, the “Pokémon Class.” 

HUM 260: What Pokémon Know: Yokai and Japanese Mythology discusses how Japan produced one of the most widely celebrated anime brands and how Pokémon characters draw from Yōkai in an exploration of Japanese mythology’s presence in today’s culture.  

This will be Takegami's fifth semester teaching What Pokémon Know and Dayzi’s fifth semester attending. 

“She thinks she's a student,” said Takegami.  

While students often find Dayzi off-leash in line at Starbucks, visiting booths at the Career Fair, or walking around class, she is never off the clock. What many people don’t know about their beloved classmate Dayzi is “she's not a pet, believe or not, she's a working dog,” Takegami said. 

The professor shared that she experiences symptoms of anxiety and claustrophobia. She looked around her classroom and said, “This (room) is really small — tight, but generally, having Dayzi with me all the time makes my mood just increase.” 

Takegami explains that Dayzi is “very good, very friendly and she loves students.” They can always find her mingling with students in the hall, “but when we go outside of her domain, she's very different.” 

Outside of Chapman, Dayzi is always on alert. “She comes between me, particularly strangers,” Takegami said. “(Dayzi) distracts attention (from me), like saying ‘pet me’ instead.”

Dayzi has also faced her own struggles before attending Chapman; she was one of four in her newborn litter that was found abandoned in a box in a field of Kern County, left to die. Takegami said that she and Dayzie share such a strong connection because “they are survivors.”

“But lucky me, I got her,” Takegami said. “It's like she fell from heaven. She is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Now, the two are a well-known duo on campus. Spending their time in class and around campus, where Dayzi likes taking walks and rolling around in the grass in the Piazza on warm days. 

“She’s just undiscriminatory; she is friends with all the students. Students are her pack,” Takegami said. 

Dayzi is a social butterfly: she meets friends everywhere she goes, including students not in her classes. One day, on her walk through the Piazza, Dayzi met her best friend: Finn Finney. Finney works on-campus as a Lab Manager for the Fisher Global Ecology Lab, but she and Dayzi began their friendship when Finney was just a freshman at Chapman. 

“When I was walking from class to Starbucks,” Finney explained, “I saw this dog off leash… the cutest dog ever, she just looked so happy and cheerful.”

After a while, Finney began to notice something: every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, she kept on crossing paths with them, and she would then eventually sit, talk with Professor Takugami and play more with Dayzi.

“I had a pretty stressful college experience,” Finney said. “I got pretty sick starting college, and then I had to go through a series of health events, and I had to get a lot of surgery, and professor Takugami and Dayzi were both like (forms of therapy)…they provided me a lot of support.”  

Now, five years later, the three of them still make time to hang out. 

“Professor Takagami and I text,” Finney said. “We try to get together to hang out with Dayzi…(especially) because during the summer, Dayzi doesn't have access to school.” 

Over the years, Finney has seen the impact Dayzi has had on Chapman. Whether she’s lying in her favorite corner, navigating below the desks to hands eager to pet her, or sitting in a chair listening to Takegami’s lecture, Dayzi brings a smile to students’ faces.

In a time when college has become increasingly stressful, students are seeking ways to cope with stress. Chapman Student Psychological Counseling Services and Disability Services are available to students, but Finney also believes that “animals provide a very deep therapy,” and “it's really important for professors to have access to that type of therapy (too).” 

Chapman professors also have access to workplace accommodations, disability services and mental health support. Having Dayzi on campus reflects faculty and students actively engaging with the resources available on campus. 

Though Finney has “experienced people who believe (emotional support animals are) not as important,” she sees more and more students come and pet Dayzi when they see her around campus.

Dayzi not only helps Takegami through her day-to-day, but, as Finney told The Panther, “it's really cute to see professors, faculty and students alike find a really beautiful common ground because of this therapy animal.”