So everybody knows that people bringing their dogs into the office makes the workplace a hip, fun, relaxed, enjoyable, stress-free, life-affirming, good-looking, Heaven-on-Earth. This is due in no small part to the irrefutable fact that everyone on this mortal coil loves dogs (except for the occasional communist baby-rapist). But let me ask the hypothetical question: what if there were some dog-related (or dog-owner-related) behaviors that were not universally beloved?
Are there any situations that may make it justifiable to not bring your dog to work? Such a bizzarro universe may be hard to imagine, so let me get the ball rolling…
[ul]
[li]**When a dog is not monitored by the owner, leaving it up to the rest of the workforce to supervise its activity. **[/li][/ul]
Well, you can’t have every slack-jawed chucklehead bringing in their dog, that would be pandemonium. I would LOVE to be able to bring one of my dogs into the office. This dog gets along well with all people, would prefer to nap all day, with occasional strolls outside to relieve himself and sniff around. I think he’d be a great office dog!
If you have an active dog that distracts you all day, that wouldn’t be very helpful. If you have a non-people-friendly dog (I have one of those too) it would not work very well. There are lots of ways that a dog could be inappropriate for the office. If you have a business professional dress code, the hairs might tick off the non-dog people.
[ul]Excessive drooling. I can stand just about any behavior from a dog, but I like to walk around in sock feet in my office and I don’t want to step into puddles of anything.[/ul]
I’d say in most workplaces, any dogs at all are inappropriate. They are at best a distraction. In some workplaces, a well-trained *and *calm (no matter how well-trained your hyperactive/ball obsessed/overly affectionate pooch is, it’s going to annoy people) dog with a competent owner can be okay, as long as it is closely supervised at all times by its owner.
I say this as a dog lover (albeit one with low tolerance for canine misbehavior and incompetent dog owners) who owns two dogs. Neither of whom would be appropriate workplace companions for various reasons, unless I kept them crated under my desk. Not all of us are crazy.
Not everyone likes dogs and some people are afraid of dogs, or allergic, or don’t appreciate dog hair, or…
I am a major dog lover and in fact one of my dogs came to work with me today…but hard though it is for me to acknowledge that not everyone adores even my smallest, cutest and most impeccably-trained mutt, I suck it up and leave the dogs at home when I go to work most of the time.
(My work-away-from-home is painting houses; occasionally when painting outside, or a rental, and with permission, I bring the fairly small, friendly and impeccably-trained one along.)
Our office has never utilized the dog policy as much as we have this year. We have 3 dogs in here right now and we had 5 yesterday. They’re all calm and well-behaved.
My boss has a Jack Russel that was banned from work for growling at people. Basically, if anyone complains about your dog even one time they’re banned for life. Complaints are anonymous of course.
It works in our office and it’s great but I think we are a unique and very lucky group. If even one person is even slightly uncomfortable it’s just not okay to bring dogs into the workplace.
Lots of people run around in socks, why the heck not?
My dogs are not mutts, nor are they smelly. That being said, only 1 of the 5 would be a good candidate for coming to work with me, the oldest, a Papillon named Cricket. She is small, inactive, quiet and loves people. She would be quite content to hang out under my desk in a little bed with a chewie.
I have never worked in a place that would allow me to bring one of my dogs. Hell, even when I worked at a kennel itr wasn’t allowed unless I paid for a day’s boarding! :rolleyes:
There are limits, and my old boss’ Airedale crossed them regularly. He bit at least 2 clients (I don’t know how James papered over those relationships). Then he jumped out an open 2nd story window into NYC side street traffic. And survived more or less unscathed.
Peoples and they doggies is cray cray. Maybe I should say doggies and they peoples.
I work at home, so I have dogs, cats, sock feet, union suits, burnt microwave popcorn and sometimes a bloody farm accident to entertain me. I’ve never worked in an organization that allowed employee dogs in the office, so I was answering on a theoretical basis only.
I hate wearing shoes and I always work no-client-contact, off-shift jobs, so working in sock feet is one of the few benefits I demand when I do work in an office.
Well much the same as dogs elsewhere, poorly trained dogs and clueless owners that don’t control them and respect others. Poorly groomed ones that stink or shed excessively. Some odor and shedding is inevitable.
Barking, whining, growling. Excessive passing of gas.
What I love is when my daughter fostered puppies for a guide dog school, she was allowed to have them in her office. Now she has kids, they have to go to day care.
I have never worked anywhere in which a dog would be an appropriate accessory. If I interviewed somewhere that allowed pet dogs in the workplace, I would definitely not want to take employment there. Having to deal with people is bad enough, why on earth would I want to put up with their annoying mutts too?
Sure, there are limits. I’ve worked in three places where they had “dog days.” The first one, we were all sitting around talking about our dogs. Two of us had puppies, and it was a small office, and we decided to have a dog day, and it was fun. Except that we were in a high-rise and two of them were puppies, and mine was the kind of puppy who wouldn’t go just anywhere, like on a strange street, but she’d pee on your purse. So the puppies were kind of disruptive, but we’d all given up on work that day anyhow.
Then I worked in a place where the owner and head guy had a yellow lab and a black lab and he always brought them. In a way it was kind of nice to have dogs in the office. They were well behaved for the most part. You could forget eating at your desk, though. They didn’t steal food but they’d sit there and look at you with their big pleading brown eyes. Other people were occasionally invited to bring in their dogs, but my dog at the time was kind of aggressive, so I didn’t.
The last place was another small and very informal office. We actually talked about a cat day, but everybody pretty much agreed that their cats would hate it, and that, in general, is the difference between dogs and cats. I have had exactly ONE cat that liked to go in the car–she loved it. Every single dog I’ve owned has loved rides, to anywhere.
