The Health Benefits Of Taking Your Dog To Work

Looking for an excuse to take your furry friends to work with you? A recent survey from Skout suggests that taking your dog to work is good for you. Having your dog by your desk during your workday can decrease stress levels and even improve your productivity. And — unsurprisingly — it makes everyone at work generally happier. So get ready to buy your dog a briefcase and update her résumé, because it’s time for your pet to hit the daily grind with you.

I work from home, which means I’m lucky enough to take my dog to work with me every single day. I can say with certainty that having a dog around boosts office morale (and, yes, by “office,” I mean the “couch that I’m sitting on right now”), so it came as no surprise to me that the 2,244 people surveyed by social networking app Skout in June 2016 reported that taking their dogs to work is generally awesome.

The survey found that although 21 percent of respondents take their dogs to work with them, 46 percent wish that they could — and for good reason. A whopping 78 percent of office workers reported that dogs increase employees’ happiness at work, and 67 percent said that having dogs around the office makes them feel less stressed.

If you’re worried that having dogs around the workplace would only make workers more distracted, don’t be: 51 percent of office workers said that dogs at work make them more productive. Just over half of respondents also reported that allowing dogs in the workplace ups a company’s “cool factor.” In sum, dogs at work mean more happiness, less stress, more productivity, and more cool. What’s not to love?

Skout found that the only negative to having pets at work was the potential for having to put up with a bad one. Nine percent of workers said that the “biggest downside” to having dogs in the office is having to pretend to like their boss’s (presumably unpleasant) dog. A loud or badly trained dog at work would be annoying, especially if you didn’t feel free to complain about it to its owner. But this seems like a small price to pay for the right to get puppy snuggles in the middle of the day.

Images: FreshSplash/E+/Getty Images; Infographic courtesy of Skout.