I’m a big believer that things happen for a reason. For example, there are many proven benefits for having dogs in office-based workplaces. These include:
- stress relief for employees
- a dog parent is more likely to be more productive and work longer hours if they are able to have their dog at work with them
- staff retention – a dog-friendly workplace is one of the best staff benefits you can get if you’re a dog parent – why would you leave?
- happy staff are more efficient and engaged with their workplace; dogs at work make for happy staff!
Yet, in the face of this growing body of evidence, many workplaces are still not dog-friendly.
The solution: a pandemic requiring people to work from home for an extended period of time.
For office-based jobs, how many of those staff will now ask to work from home a lot more – even when the pandemic has passed?
Kathleen Crisley, Fear-Free certified professional and specialist in dog massage, rehabilitation and nutrition/food therapy, The Balanced Dog, Christchurch, New Zealand
DoggyMom.com 
I am hoping we will see more work places accepting dogs at work. It might be a good thing for dog training too, if people work on getting their dogs trained to a therapy dog accreditation level. High level of training takes away one objection to dogs in the workplace.
I will miss my dog when I go back to work.