St. Mary's students painted a real, live dog and brought it into their student section (Photo)

St. Mary’s plays one of the biggest regular season games in program history Saturday night against No. 1 Gonzaga.

Students were understandably fired up for the primetime game. They brought signs, flags, foam fingers, and more. They painted their faces, and likely consumed plenty of alcoholic beverages beforehand.

They also brought and painted a dog:

Um … What? Why? How?

Some colleges have real, live dogs as their real, official mascots. But those dogs are almost always on leashes, and they’re taken care of by school employees.

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This dog A) is right in the middle of the student section, B) is not in any way related to St. Mary’s official mascot, and C) somehow got through security — surely St. Mary’s doesn’t permit fans to bring their pets to the gym for games, right?

The dog also looks miserable. Seriously. It isn’t having any fun at all. It isn’t enjoying being passed around like a toy by the students. And it probably didn’t enjoy have paint smeared on its face.

We can only imagine what will happen if the Gaels upset the top-ranked Zags and the students storm the floor like they have in the past…