10 Tips for Celebrating Take Your Dog to Work Day

Take Your Dog to Work Day is coming this June 21!

Celebrating this day is not a strange concept anymore in the business world. It’s a great day for us to think of our lovely canine companions and encourage dog adoption.

Some companies even celebrate TYDTWD for the whole week (which is June 21-25 this year). In fact, at the Seattle headquarters of Amazon, with 7,000 four-legged friends, every day is Take Your Dog to Work Day.

Are you planning to celebrate this day for your company, too?

It’s not that simple to just let employees bring their dogs to the workplace and call it a celebration. So this post is here to help you celebrate this meaningful day successfully.

Benefits of Take Your Dog to Work Day

The presence of furry pals at work has a positive impact on employees’ well-being, both mentally and physically.

A welcoming friend with their tail wagging at the door can help your staff reduce stress levels and anxiety, which leads to higher job satisfaction and engagement.

Playing fetch, offering belly rubs, and taking care of dogs require employees to be more active, which is helpful if they’re sitting a lot.

If your business welcomes pets, employees have a more positive perception of you and you can retain the animal lovers in your company.

Cute pooches also have the power to connect people. Employees can chat, pet, and laugh together when pets are around, magically.

How to celebrate Take Your Dog to Work Day

1. Consider everyone’s preference and comfort level

The goal of this adorable day is to make sure everyone’s happy, safe, and healthy. So what’s the point if someone’s scared to death or keeps sneezing?

Check if anyone in your workplace is:

• allergic to pets
• not fond of pets
• scared of pets

Not everyone’s going to love dogs, so survey employees on their comfort level and preference before applying a bring-dog-to-work policy.

If everyone’s happy with having dogs at work, you can start celebrating!

However, if some people aren’t OK with this, be respectful and celebrate this day in another way. We’ve included some tips below.

2. Set clear policies and expectations

The important thing is to set clear expectations and policies right from the beginning. Pet owners need to know the rules and train their dogs in advance to avoid accidents at work.

Make sure that you, as an employer, can update the policies if needed.

3. Prepare your workplace before welcoming pet pals

Put away poisonous food, plants, and chemicals that can be harmful to dogs.

Hide wires, cords, appliances, and items that may be dangerous for pet pals if they chew on.

Prepare bowls, food, water, treats, toys, poop bags, cleaning supplies, kennels, and portable gates. You can let dog owners contribute these items.

4. Owners should prepare their furry friends, too

Make sure staff’s dogs are shot, clean, and well-groomed before showing up at work.

Both staff and dogs need to be safe and sound. If someone’s dog is fierce or shy, it’s best to leave them at home.

If these pals suddenly become uncomfortable or withdrawn, leaving pets alone in a vehicle or a cage isn’t advisable here. Staff should have an exit plan for taking them home. And business owners can consider hiring a pet sitter on this day to avoid disruption in the workflow.

5. Plan feeding and bathroom times ahead

This is to avoid canine “colleagues” asking to have their needs met when your staff members are too busy with work or meeting with a client.

10 tips for celebrating Take Your Dog to Work Day

1. If the idea of having too many dogs in the workplace is overwhelming, you can allow one person per day to bring in a dog.
2. If you can’t allow everyone to bring their dog to work, you can encourage them to share dog photos with the hashtags #TakeYourDogToWorkDay or #TYDTWD on social media. Any pet owners will be excited to do that.
3. Be flexible when implementing pet-friendly policies, such as allowing allergic staff to work from home on bring-in-dogs days.
4. Be careful with colleagues’ interactions. Not everyone’s fond of all the licking and jumping. So remind your staff to train their dogs to respect others’ space.
5. Some colleagues are animal lovers, but they aren’t aware of what’s good for dogs. They may offer chocolate or food that isn’t made for dogs. You can tell employees to not give treats unless the owner is there.
6. If you’re not certain about the dogs’ behaviors when clients, customers, board members, shareholders, etc. visit, it’s best to keep the dogs away in certain situations.
7. Establish rules about misbehaviors. If a pet causes distraction, trouble, or “accidents” too many times at the workplace, he/she can be brought home.
8. If a dog has a record of biting someone in the past, employers can take precautions by not allowing him/her at work. Safety is the priority.
9. Organize a visit to the local dog shelter and help with the volunteer work. Who knows, some of your employees may want to adopt a furry friend. It’s one of the purposes of having this TYDTW day, anyway.
10. If voluntary work and adoption aren’t possible, you can donate to provide homes and support for animals.

So…are you ready for this lovely Take Your Dog to Work Day?

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