WORCESTER, Mass. Todd Zucker is a senior at Clark University in this central Massachusetts town, but he’s not looking forward to graduation this spring. “I’ve had a great four years here,” he says as he sits with his dog Dylan on the lawn outside a dormitory. “I owe it all to Dylan here.”
Todd and canine babe magnet
Todd has used Dylan as an ice-breaker with female students, producing a string of sexual conquests he could only have dreamed of as a pudgy high school student. “It’s almost embarrassing,” he says with a sheepish grin. “It’s no wonder they don’t let you bring dogs to high school.”
“That thing ate my black lab!”
But the idyllic life that this boy and his dog have led is under attack from a new critter on the block–Komodo Dragons, the carnivorous lizard that has been adopted by some male students who feel they’ve been unfairly deprived of their share of coeds here. “I’m allergic to dog hair,” says pre-med student Richard Bader. “I’ve watched guys get laid with nothing more than a smile and a golden retriever–it’s payback time.”
“Komodo dragons are clean, quiet, and for some reason don’t cost much to feed!”
Komodo Dragons can reach lengths of up to ten feet and feed on water buffaloes, deer and the occasional human in their native Indonesia. “You can run but you can’t hide from a Komodo Dragon,” says biologist Timothy Mulhern of Central Massachusetts University. “Once they hear the soft rock music behind the closed door of a dorm room, they attack.”
Coeds say here they are keeping an open mind about boys with the newly-fashionable lizard pets, especially since the number of dogs on campus seems to have declined. “Is it just me,” asks senior Emily Weinsten, “or are there a lot fewer golden retrievers around this semester?”