Last Friday was Take Your Dog to Work day, a fantastic initiative that celebrates the contribution that dogs make to us and society in general and also to encourage people to adopt from shelters and rescues. It is well known that having a pet can lower stress levels, blood pressure and improve activity levels so surely bringing them to work can assist with productivity and morale, providing you don’t have any dog haters in your office environment.
Dogs are not allowed in our workplace, for many reasons but the main one appears to be health and safety. To get around this I implemented a ‘Bring Your (Virtual) Pet to Work’ day and encouraged staff to bring in photos and fluffy toys that represented their pets and to decorate their office space as they saw fit. That day was today and it has been lots of fun, many of my colleagues are dog lovers so the majority of images and toys were dog related. We tied the event to a fund-raising morning tea for the Animal Welfare League Queensland, they rely heavily on donations of cash and goods from the general public and are always in need of old blankets, towels, pet food and kitty litter. I don’t know how much we have raised, the collection of donations has been extended to a week to give all of our work mates the chance to make a donation but every little bit helps. In the meantime everyone got the chance to eat cake, talk about their beloved fur-kids and contribute to a good cause – what a great day to end the week 🙂
Two Black Dogs 
What a great iniative – good on you for creating a fun and fundraising day around pets! We’re lucky, we can take our dogs to work but the office is so big they run amok all day and no-one gets any work done!
Thank you, it was so much fun and looking up and seeing happy dogs staring back it me makes being inside all day tolerable. I like the sound of your workplace, must be a happy place to be when the dogs are running amok 🙂
Yes, we have carers bringing theirs in too – we’re a pet minding business!!
That makes alot of sense, you must spend a good part of your day with a huge smile on your face 🙂
Fantastic Sam! This post proves the old adage “never judge a book by its cover”. I read the headline and thought “silly, no work’d get done” and wasn’t going to read the post, but loyalty brought me back and I’m glad it did! Excellent idea and great pics.
Glad you gave the post a second chance and that it was worth it, thanks for sticking around 🙂
Wonderful pictures of so many cheerful doggies! (The toys are cute too). I imagine just seeing those photos made everyone’s day happier. And to raise money for a good cause must have made the event even more special 🙂
Everyone certainly seemed to lighten up, it could have been the sugar in the cakes but I’d like to think it was result of having our virtual pets at work 🙂
What a great idea! We can’t have dogs at our office either, but most of us in my department are just crazy about our fur-kids….I feel like every day is take your (virtual) dog to work day, there are so many puppy pictures up in our offices! 🙂 My goal in life is to someday work somewhere that I can bring my dog.
I have a few dog crazy colleagues at work so there is some sharing of puppy pictures but it was a great excuse to plaster our walls with photos and have cake. Working somewhere dog friendly is my ideal too, but Australia isn’t the most dog friendly country – too many health and safety restrictions on taking dogs anyway but the dog park.
Oh, I just loved this post I’m still smiling from ear to ear..
It is a wonderful feeling to make someone smile, so happy you enjoyed reading about our fun day at work 🙂
What a wonderful idea. I enjoyed the post and photos immensely.
Thank you, it was the closest I could get to having a take your dog to work day without losing my job 😉 Glad you liked it!