Bring Your Dog to Work Day

A blog post by Outreach Coordinator Rachael Binning.

During the winter months the work week seems to be especially long. The past few weeks have been really busy with grant proposal writing and late night meetings. To cheer up the staff and myself I decided to bring my best friend with me to work today. I will freely admit to anyone who asks that my best friend is my dog Wednesday, a two year old black Goldendoodle (her father is a black Standard Poodle and her mother is a Golden Retriever). I’m very aware of the fact that I am biased, but Wednesday really is one amazing dog. I drove out with her fromCalifornia, where we are both originally from, all the way to Washington DC, where we live now. She really is my partner in crime and together we’ve explored all over DC and had many adventures on hiking trails around DC and Baltimore. When the museum is closed to visitors and no major meetings or events are taking place I’m lucky enough to be able to bring her into the JMM.

As you will see through my pictures, the staff loves her (almost) as much as I do. To prove my own personal belief that dogs should be allowed in the workplace I did a little research on the benefits of bringing dogs into the workplace. Her is some of the info that I found:

-According to a CNN Money [http:///money.cnn.com/2006/01/24/news/funny/dog_work/index.htm] survey two-thirds or dog owners said that they would work longer hours if they were allowed to bring their dog to work.

-According to the American Humane Association when people bring dogs to work staff morale and productivity increases, camaraderie between staff members increases and the happier the employees are the more the productivity increases (www.dogfriendly.com).

Because the Museum has visitors and guests most days of the week it will never become a completely dog friendly workplace, but I’m really grateful that I am able to bring her in on those random lucky days. I don’t think that she increases my productivity level (or at least she hasn’t yet) but she definitely makes the office a much more exciting and welcoming place.