The KOTTON Effect: The Story of UP Diliman's Top ESA

EARLY DAYS 

"Kotton Effect" is a term I coined back in 2019 when I observed how a thin and gentle stray dog at the UP College of Mass Communication (CMC) had won the hearts of many students. They fed him and caressed him and called him many names of endearment. 

He must have been about 3-4 months old when I first met him. He was blackish and mangy. I developed the habit of buying food for him and feeding him. He loved meat viands with sauce and rice. He started waiting for me at the parking lot of Plaridel Hall, and would run and leap on me with sheer joy. At first, I was afraid to touch him because of the small crawling insects I saw on his back. But he was insistent and wouldn't stop jumping on me until I gave him food and attention.

Underneath the dirty skin and fur, he was whitish. So I named him Cotton and promised him that one day he would be handsome and his fur would be as soft as cotton.

He was not the only dog at CMC. Another kind, motherly dog had enchanted the students and grown quite close to Kotton. I named her Chess, after her fur markings that looked like black and white pieces of a chessboard. Chess and Cotton were inseparable, like mother and son or better yet, like best friends.

Kotton was a roamer. Whenever I wanted to feed him or give him a bath, I would get into my car and scan the streets near Quezon Hall, College of Music and University Theater. He knew the sound of my car so he would run up to me. Or was it the smell?

Before the pandemic, the security guards, students and staff loved Cotton and Chess. The guards shared their lunch and dinner with both dogs, the students bought barbecue for them and Katkat, a member of the CMC staff, found sponsors so they could have regular meals, rain or shine.

When the opportunity came for a free neutering in early 2018, I took Chess to the Institute of Biology for spaying. Cotton was nowhere to be found. But I asked the kind vets for meds to cure him of mange. 

A few months later, another opportunity came for free neutering. To make sure that Cotton would be there the following day, I leashed him to one of the sheds the night before the surgery. The guard said Kotton had wailed all night. I had no car the following day, so my plan was to load him into the garbage truck I had managed to borrow from the Campus Maintenance Office to pick up all other stray dogs for neutering. But Cotton refused to jump up the truck without me. So the men helped me up and once he saw me on the back of the truck, he jumped right in.

When the pandemic hit us in March 2020 and the first lockdown was declared on March 15, I rushed to UP to check on the roaming dogs at CMC and Quezon Hall who had become my friends. I found Chess at CMC, searching for food. Kotton and Harry were at Quezon Hall with resident dogs Tisay and Lakan or Macho. The guards had been sharing their food with them. They were thin, dirty, hungry and begging for food and reassurance. Their whimpering broke my heart. I made the decision to bring Kotton, Chess and Harry to Balay Kaibigan where they could have meals and baths.

THE K TEAM

FAST FORWARD TO 2022. Cotton, the once skinny and mangy dog, is now a UP Diliman Emotional Support Animal (ESA) as well as a SAGIP campus search and rescue K9. People who touch him never fail to praise his soft, clean fur. He is now the COTTON I promised he would be.

The only problem is that he is a clingy dog. He became clingy because he was sad during the days when I wasn't around in the campus.  But when a virus broke out in Balay Kaibigan where he had been living for more than 2 years, I took him home. He was the happiest dog in the world! The days of waiting for me were over.

I now call him my "white shadow". His days of uncertainty, of not knowing whether I would visit him, are gone. Now, he never tires of following me from room to room and up and down the stairs. I can feel his eyes take in my every move, whether I'm drinking a glass of water or working on my laptop. Thankfully, he falls asleep when he knows I will be working for hours.

UP SAGIP SEARCH AND RESCUE K9

In January 2021, I submitted a proposal to train a group of UPD stray dogs to become search and rescue dogs. The idea was that they would help find missing persons in case of an earthquake or other emergency in the campus. Kotton became my K9, and I his handler. I had always dreamed of training a dog who would be my buddy everywhere I go. Well, this was it. This was when he became KOTTON (with a K) and we became the "K Team".

Together with 10 other campus dogs, we train on Saturdays, under rain and sun. We do night searches. We train in different buildings, colleges, the UPD lagoon and open fields. My skin gained a reddish tan and Kotton built muscles. Kotton, who looks like he is half-Labrador, is talented but stubborn. Sometimes it's a test of wills when I give the command "Sit" and "Stay". Most of the time, the standoff is solved by Jollibee chicken treats.

The other dogs in the group are also good searchers. Short-legged Nano, Amore, Dagz, Bar and Maroon can find people hiding in the bushes or in clutter-filled rooms in record time. The medium-sized aspins or asong Pinoy (local dogs) do equally well in field searches and building searches. The dogs have become friends and always look forward to Saturday trainings. The handlers, an eclectic mix of faculty, residents, staff, students, security guards and Social Services Brigade personnel (SSB), have learned to work as a team. 

UPD EMOTIONAL SUPPORT ANIMALS (ESAs)

 Together with Tisay, another friendly aspin from Quezon Hall or UPD's "seat of power", Kotton was presented to UP officials as an "emotional support dog" in February 2019. Former UPD Chancellor Michael Tan had told me days earlier that he had to introduce the concept of "tapping our campus dogs as emotional support animals" because certain officials were planning to have the dogs rounded up and brought to the pound soon. So at 6:30pm on that day, Dr. Tan called Kotton and Tisay to the stage. I had the honor of bringing in one of UP's first emotional support dogs.

 The strategy was brilliant. While Dr. Tan was talking and pointing at him, Kotton faced the audience and sat down. He took in all the lights and the attention. The audience roared in delight. That's where I realized that Kotton loves the limelight.

The press had been invited to cover the big event which marked the 70th anniversary of the transfer of the UP campus to Diliman from its original campus in Ermita. The celebration included music, dances and speeches from the university's top officials. But the news that came out the following day focused mostly on Kotton and Tisay and their role as the first emotional support dogs in the campus.

After that, Kotton and I were requested to visit the Diliman Learning and Research Center to help the students relax while they worked on their theses and other requirements or prepared for midterm and final exams.

On our first visit, a student working at her laptop suddenly reached out to Kotton. She asked if she could touch and hug him. I said yes, and kept a watchful eye on them as she hugged Kotton and talked to him. I saw her several times in the following days, so I asked her what exactly was Kotton's impact on her.

THE KOTTON EFFECT

"On the first day that Kotton passed by me, I was struggling with my thesis. I had reached a dead end and knew I wouldn't be able to finish it in time. That meant I wouldn't graduate, and I didn't know how to tell my parents. So at that moment, I was thinking about ending my life. Then Kotton came," she recalled. 

I was dumbfounded. So Kotton had that effect on people! He distracts them and pulls them away from dark thoughts and helps them back to the present. And he gives them hope. 

The more I see The Kotton Effect, the more I learn to respect Kotton. He allows strangers to touch him, but it is my role to protect him. It's no joke to have 6 pairs of hands on your head or your body. I have to make sure Kotton is not uncomfortable. So I limit interactions to 30 minutes then we take a 30-minute break.

MY PERSONAL ESA 

Now that Kotton lives with me, it's like having my personal ESA. He forces me to walk daily. I sleep late so I'm too lazy to wake up early and walk, but I have to because he won't poop nor pee inside the house.

Kotton also makes me laugh...a lot. He and my female dog Dimanche have really hit it off, and now I have two dogs sleeping with me in the room. It's been barely two months, but Kotton has told me in so many ways that he no longer wants to live in Balay Kaibigan. We go there for visits, but he's here to stay. We still do Saturday trainings and we have been requested to start ESA duties again at DLRC. We will continue to do that as volunteers. But there's no more question about where Kotton will stay. He has a real home now.