Students at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pa., participate in Dog Days in 2004. Susquehanna and other schools are finding that pets are a good way to help new students deal with homesickness.

AP / CHRIS STUTZ

SELINSGROVE, Pa. — About 5 in the afternoon, they started to gather on this central Pennsylvania college campus: The shih tzu brothers Boomer and Otis; Maggie, a lumbering chocolate lab; Cole and Chase, the David and Goliath of the bunch, and the talented Bunsen, the boxer mix who has his own blog and can eat treats he flips off his nose.

Then it was time to send in the homesick freshmen.

“You’re cute! You look like my dog,” said Kayla Springer, 18, a biology major who was fussing over Chase, a border collie/German shepherd.

Thus began one of the “Dog Days,” as they’re formally called at Susquehanna University, along the banks of the Susquehanna River. Professors and other staffers brought their dogs to school for an hour of social interaction with students, especially freshmen, on Tuesdays during September.

The events, held in a grassy area outside the dining hall, are designed to help students overcome their homesickness — particularly the piece most painful for some: absence of the family pet.

Students can’t pick up their phones and call Sparky.

Or text him.

Or e-mail him.

“The fact is that students miss their pets, sometimes more than they miss their families,” said Anna Beth Payne, associate dean of student life and director of the school’s counseling center.

“You, as parents, didn’t sleep with them in the bed every night before they came away to college. The dog did,” added Nikki Tobias, another staffer and owner of Chase and Cole, a Yorkshire terrier.

Jackie Newell, 19, a freshman communications and Spanish major from Maine, said she misses Babe, her mutt.

“It’s a close tie between the dog and my mom,” she said with a smile.

Nine dogs showed up on this Tuesday, a typical turnout. Dozens of students stopped to play with them on their way into and out of dinner.

Bunsen, whose blog bunsensbark.blogspot.com features his exploits with ex-girlfriends, drew a crowd when his owner, journalism professor Judy Morris, placed a treat on his snout. She cautioned: “Wait. Wait. Wait.” Then she pulled her hand away as Bunsen popped the treat into the air and caught it in his mouth.

But no one dog could steal the show for long.

An excited Gabbie Robbins, 18, a freshman English major from Bergen County, N.J., ran up to her friend: “He kisses,” she said, pointing to Cole.

Dog Days have been held on the nearly 2,100-student, 306-acre campus for five years. They were started by former counseling director Kathy Bradley, now executive director of health and counseling at Gettysburg College. Bradley has started Dog Days at Gettysburg, too, holding it during the first two weeks of school. And a few times a semester, Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., which heard about Susquehanna’s program, brings trained therapy dogs — some owned by staff members — to campus to visit with students.

Susquehanna doesn’t use professionally trained dogs. But all owners sign a paper stating that their dogs are up to date on shots and of good disposition, Payne said.