WFU professor Allan Louden and his dog Glacier are actual relationship goals

Meet the ‘Campus Wonderdog’

Any dog loving student knows one of the hardest parts about being away at college is being separated from your dog.

When you’re a stressed out college student, seeing a dog around campus can absolutely brighten your day. If you think a dog sighting on campus is great, taking a class with one is extra special.

This semester, I had the pleasure of getting that added joy from none other than Wake Forest’s “Campus Wonderdog,” Glacier. Professor Allan Louden brings Glacier to class every day.

If you didn’t know our campus had a “wonderdog” fear not, I didn’t either until I took a class with Professor Louden, Glacier’s owner and Chair of the Department of Communication. Trust me, you definitely want to get acquainted with this pup.

For Louden, Glacier makes work a lot more than giving lectures and grading papers.

“School is our major together time,” Louden said.

All semester long, Glacier was a model student. He achieved perfect attendance, greeted every student with a friendly tail wag, and quietly enjoyed the lecture (but mostly getting petted by the students).

Another day in class

Such a model student

Professor Louden has been a professor at Wake Forest for 39, going on 40 years. He started bringing his dog to class 20 years ago with Glacier’s predecessor Montana, or Tana for short. After Tana, came Wyoming (aka Ms. Ming) and now Glacier, who has been presiding over Carswell for about 2 years. Glacier is a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, which Professor Louden calls, “a golden retriever with attitude.”

“This dog goes with everybody,” Louden said. “He belongs to the campus.”

When Louden and Glacier aren’t at school together, they can be seen running errands together at places like the hardware store and other businesses that allow dogs.

Their home life is also spent together.

“We go to bed at night together and wrestle over a pillow.” Louden said. “We also watch basketball together. He likes that.”

Glacier is Louden’s only pet right now, but he used to have a cat as well.

“I had a cat who just passed away this year named Tucker who was 18. The cat kinda ran everything. The cat would have killed the dog when it first got here.”

If you want to find Glacier, he can usually be found in Professor Louden’s office in Carswell 119 or playing on the lower quad.

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