Seventeen years ago Pet Sitters International (PSI) came up with the idea of taking your dog to work for a day as way to celebrate the canine-human bond and promote companion animals. They picked the Friday following Father’s Day. During the early years, when as a pet sitter myself, my company offered tips to other businesses that wanted to join in on PSI’s Take Your Dog To Work Day^TM (TYDTWD) for the first time. This annual celebration is today, Friday, June 26^th and everything you need for this year’s fete can be found at petsit.com.

Adele’s first visit to my AKC office at 9 weeks old.

During my professional life, it’s been a challenge to partake in TYDTWD from my varied workplaces from newsrooms, courtrooms and corporate offices to barns, stables and kennels. However, many times I’ve found my work space at home, which means every day is take your dog(s) to work day. This year, I’m going to propose a new tradition for us freelancers, telecommuters or subcontractors who share our home office every weekday with dogs. Welcome to “Take My Dog to Your Work Day!” Think about it for a minute. We can send our boisterous dogs with their daily, if not hourly, distractions that interrupt our workflow to your workplace so the rest of us can actually get some work done!

The Elvemel Gang at Work in the Home Office! Today, Adele leads the pack, while Jinx keeps a watch out the window. Linx, left, looks out the other window. They’ve got my back!

Distraction Faction  

Currently, Jinx and Adele, my two Norwegian Elkhound bitches, are leaning over the back of the living room couch, looking out the big bay window through a thin sheer white curtain. “Bark, Bark, bark, bark,” at what they think is a threat. Could be a squirrel, a school bus, or maybe even joggers or bicyclists on the highway. Heaven forbid! But that’s what they do. They alert to any movement that is out of the ordinary, much like if they saw a moose in the wilds of Norway and needed to let the hunter know where to get dinner.

But then it subsides and work can resume. Problem is, one never knows when there is something else to announce. A bird flying by, the delivery man arrives, a busy woodchuck scuttles across the front yard or maybe they smell the foxes playing in the backyard. And you just can’t tune them out, because you never know when they are actually in need of something. Like going outside to take care of business or maybe they are thirsty. Maybe they are up from a nap and want to go outside and play fetch the geo-ball. But now, I hear the howl of the old bitch bark, followed by the puppy yelp. Old bitch is just being annoying but puppy needs to tinkle. As time passes, puppy will learn the different pitches and pauses to have me completely trained to do her bidding. So far this morning she has told me about, two tinkle breaks, one woodchuck, one empty water bowl and the neighbor’s SUV leaving the shared driveway.

Jinx takes a break from a  hard day’s work.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Finally, the bitches are sleeping. The constant rhythm of their breathing, especially the  deep slow exhales from the oldest of the pack, keep me focused, grounded into the work of the day, the writing, the reading, the surfing, the updating, the whatever.

Still silent, I hear the male dog of the house, Linx, downstairs, apart from the girls because, well, it’s that time of the year for Adele. “Pheeft, pheeft, pheeft, pheeft,” strong nails scratching on his favorite cot as he nests to find that perfect place to plant his butt. But wait, he needs a drink, “Thup, thup, thup, thup,” he laps fresh water which spills onto the cool concrete floor where I now hear he’s decided to now rest his well-coiffed pantaloons. All this activity followed by a heavy sigh, “Whew,” as he drifts off into his morning nap dreaming of fjords and forests.

“Crunch, crunch, crunch,” back in the living room, Adele has found her favorite bone, or rather moose antler, with that distinctive sound it makes similar to nails on a blackboard as she gnaws her way to canine bliss. In the background I detect the softest of snores of an old girl in her twilight years.

So join me in establishing the Friday before Independence Day as Take My Dog to Your Work Day, to gain freedom from doggie distractions preventing work from being accomplished. Wait, I tried that once, working off-site in solitude. I remember the silence was stifling and I was unable to concentrate without all my nurturing noises near me. Never mind, I’ll take my dogs to work everyday, any day!