Dog Training For Pet friendly offices
It’s never been more acceptable to bring your dog to work, and pet friendly offices throughout the UK are very common. The nation seems to (almost) be in agreement about the virtues of bringing your best friend in for the work day as well. A recent study by the Banfield Pet Hospital found that 82% of employees felt a greater sense of loyalty to workplaces which promoted themselves as pet-friendly, 88% of people interviewed felt that pets in the workplace helps improve staff morale, and a further 86% of employees found that having a pet at work helped reduce stress.
Pet friendly offices are on the rise. Companies such as Pets at Home, Mars Petcare, Blue Cross, and even non-pet related offices such as Next Management, Firebox, Google and Amazon boast having pet friendly offices, the latter companies in par. Ben and Jerrys and Build a Bear in the United States also have dog friendly offices – as well as a number of smaller firms across the world.
Office-based companies are seeing the benefit of making the office pet friendly too – for office based work, a well behaved dog is about as common as a pot plant or a water fountain – and can actively engage and retain staff members. Offering pet friendly offices is a good way of attracting and retaining millennial workers in particular – which are sought after by very many companies, particularly in the digital industries.
It’s not really a case of just turning up with your dog, though. Pet friendly offices are still offices, and dogs which are part of this initiative are dogs which have been through quite a bit of dog training. There are a number of dog training schools which offer bespoke dog training which is focused on both master and dog – so there’s really no reason to not get your dog trained properly.
Untrained dogs are not acceptable dogs to bring to the office – as after all it is still a place of work. As such, companies which participate in pet friendly offices do have stringent rules to ensure that as employers, they fulfil their commitment to making workplaces safe for all employees and visitors.
Furthermore, companies will ensure that their workplaces are still productive places to be. An unruly (but adorable!) dog is not conductive to either safety or productivity, and some rules which are in place in pet friendly offices are that the dog must undergo dog training, be fully vaccinated, and simply cannot be aggressive or allowed to run about, off the lead. Another commonplace rule in pet friendly offices is mess – should your dog foul in the office, you may be asked to not bring your dog again. Therefore, dog training is absolutely paramount to maintaining the fun part of a pet friendly office.
