Take Your Dog to Work Day + Our Guide to Dogs in the Office
Coming up Friday, June 20 is Take Your Dog to Work Day. Check out the event website to hear the furrifically funny theme song, download a letter promoting the day to send to your boss, and find out which dog breeds are most commonly brought into offices.
Of course, we here at Dogster HQ welcome pups with open paws. On any given day, we have one to eight dogs working (or more accurately sleeping, playing, begging for treats, walking across keyboards, etc.) alongside us. As our team has grown, and more dogs have come on board, we’ve realized that even a dog-centric company like Dogster needs to have guidelines, so we’ve developed always-evolving policies to help ensure employee/pooch happiness and productivity.
In honor of TYDTWDAY, we thought we’d share our current guide as a small part of our experience with having pets in the workplace.
DOGSTER, INC. MEMO
Accident Policy:
Whenever an accident occurs the owner must scrub, spray and thoroughly clean the area. No stain should be visible.Time-Outs:
First accident – Dog takes one week time-out from office.
Second accident – Dog takes two weeks time-out from office.
Third accident and onward – Dog takes one month time-out from office.Every dog starts with a clean slate.
It’s important to recognize that time-outs are not meant to punish the dog or the owner. Their purpose is to reduce the amount of pee/poo and keep the office clean and healthy. If there is any dog behavior that is disrupting your work, please let your Team Leader or Human Resources know when it is happening, and we will ask the owner to help control the situation.
We are totally open to feedback, so please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about all this. We all have done a really good job in making this a better place to work with the dogs. We all love having the dogs around, and by being aware of others and having fewer accidents, we will continue to enjoy a great work environment we can share with our pets.
The pawsitive effects of allowing employees to bring their pets to work have been widely surveyed and verified. Each work environment is unique, so one company’s policy may not work as well somewhere else, but with some creativity and open discussion with management and staff, we’re confident that almost any company can arrive at a policy which works for its organization.
Do you take your dog to work? Does your company have a pup policy? Talk about it here!
Anglea,
Great posting and I especialy love the part about the rules for the pets at work. very funny! Are they from an actual workplace?
Thank you. They are indeed! They’re our official rules here at Dogster’s headquarters in San Francisco.
This should be a national landmark day and should be practiced once a week at the very least. Having that loved one nearby not only produces a better environment, but everyone seems to be more productive and happier. Certainly the doggy is the happiest. I have long practiced taking Pita to work with me even when we had a no dog policy at our high rise offices in Los Angeles. By the time I got done with the building management, close to half of the offices were bringing their canines to work. Now the building has a written policy allowing well behaved dogs and cats into the offices. Hooray for progress and the squeaky wheel.
Dogster HQ is a fine example of a progressive thinking organization and we applaud them. Dogs rule!
we wish we could go to work friday with our mom, she works with chocolate though
we are happy when she comes home 
I love the rules you’ve posted… I get to go into work as often as my peep don’t have meetings (which isn’t very often), but when I do it’s great fun and I definitely improve office morale. The university campus doesn’t have a pet policy, but my peep works in HR and being a direct report of AVP of HR has its perks. :o) My peep’s rules are as follows (and she has pretty strict rules):
1) no whining, no barking, no growling
2) any and all accidents must be cleaned up immediately and thoroughly
3) baths & flea / tick / heartworm, etc. must be up to date
4) four on the floor - no jumping on the co-workers
5) always have a lint roller / brush handy
6) always scoop da poops!
7) always on leash *(except in my peep’s office where a baby gate has been set up to restrict my wanderings)
That’s all I can think of fur now… :o) But I absolutely LOVE going into the office and sniffing all da butts! ;o)
Bob, you are a shining example of not letting silly “no pets allowed” rules interfere with your dog’s life. I love reading the stories of all the places Pita goes to with you.
Unfortunately the building management will not let any pets in any of the offices here. We had a few people bring quiet dogs in the lobby and the next day our entire building was being repremanded for it. I would love to have Bella in here with me! She may miss her comfy bed at home though!
Very amusing. My pup joins me in the office every day. Luckily, he hasn’t broken any rules except for the time he escaped my office and ventured out into the front lobby.
But I loved the article. And it was an added bonus to see the photo of my Hamlet in the filing cabinet! I thought I had already logged into my page somehow.
Hi, Crystal: I did a photo tag search for “office” on Dogster and discovered Hamlet’s pic. I thought it was perfect for my post. What a cutie!
[...] woofs from Dogster HQ. Here we are celebrating TYDTWDAY in our San Francisco offices with five of the six office dogs who attended the event. (Moxie was in [...]
[...] Posted by: : Category: Pets Big woofs from Dogster HQ. Here we are celebrating TYDTWDAY in our San Francisco offices with five of the six office dogs who attended the event. (Moxie was in [...]
I am a teacher and Castro the chihuahua goes to work with me regularly. Everyone loves him and my students absolutely light up when he puts the ball next their feet to be thrown. I wish everyone could take their pet to work as often as they want. I am lucky, I guess. Kay