Newsgroups: rec.pets.dogs
Subject: Re: Dogs at Work?
From: RGINZBERG@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Ruth Ginzberg)
Date: 26 Jan 93 20:37:12 EDT
Distribution: world
Organization: Philosophy Dept., Wesleyan University
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.20In-Reply-To: roop@cc.swarthmore.edu's message of Tue, 26 Jan 1993 19:14:03 GMTLines: 71

In <roop-260193135650@karen.swarthmore.edu> roop@cc.swarthmore.edu writes:

> I'm interested to find out how many people take their dogs to work with
> [...]
> Where do you work (private corp., college, etc.)?

small liberal arts college (much like yours, Karen)

> What do you do for a living?

Asst. Prof., Philosophy
I shall also answer these Q's on behalf of 3 other folks who I Know take their
dogs to work w. them here; 2 in Music department, & 1 a graduate student in
Psychology

> Do you have your own office, share one, have a cubicle, etc.?

Own office.  In an old historic building.  The Psych grad student shares an
office.

> Where do you keep your dog at work?

On the floor, in the corner, next to my desk.  Or sometimes playing with a toy
in the middle of the floor.  My ofc. is carpeted.

> Is the dog crated or can roam? 

roam - but I usually shut my ofc door so that she doesn't go bugging the folks
in the other offices, trying to get them to play with her.  Sometimes my
colleagues will ask me to leave my door open so she can wander into their
offices, & I do.

> Do you work normal business hours (i.e., 9:00-5:00, M-F)? If not, when do
> you work?

Heh, heh.  I don't have tenure yet.  So I work about 80 hrs/week.  Sometimes I
do work from home, though -- usually after dark or when the weather is bad.

> Did you have to get special permission to have your dog at work?

No.  Speaking for all 4 of us who I know take our dogs to work -- basically we
just started doing it, & when nobody told us not to, we kept doing it.  When I
forst got my dog, I took her in just for an hour at a time, maybe once/week. 
After she pooped on my historic carpet <grimmace> (which just about put the
maintenance staff into heart failure), I postponed bringing her to work any
more 'til she was VERY reliably housebroken.

  If so,
> what kind of permission?  What justification did you have to give to have
> your dog at work?

The only thing that might get in the way would be if a student who is allergic
to, or afraid of, dogs complained to a Dean or something (about not being able
to access the Prof because of the Dog, or something like that).  My dept
chair's office door is RIGHT next to mine, so he already knows I bring Buffer
to work w. me, & he's one of her bigger fans. (Of course, he sometimes brings
his twin 3-year-old boys, & they're much less well behaved than my dog :).  I
haven't ever taken her to a class that I teach yet, but I might (when I can
trust her Long Down well enough to know that she will do it w/out my attention
for 1.5 hours).  I have had students bring their dogs to my classes, & my only
expectation is that the Dog has to be able to sustain a Down for the entire
class period, or else it would be better left at home during class.  I have had
allergic students complain about the fact that I've allowed this, but whenever
I have asked the allergic student directly, "Is this going to prevent you from
being able to take this class?" they've always said "no."  I suppose if someone
said "yes" I'd have to give preference to the (tuition-paying) human & ask the
dog to leave. :-)

------------------------
Ruth Ginzberg <rginzberg@eagle.wesleyan.edu>
Philosophy Department;Wesleyan University;USA