It was Take Your Cat to Work Day a few weeks back, and although I love cats, I wonder how good a day this is. I am not sure your average cat appreciates that kind of upheaval, and I wonder about the strange flavor of cat that would enjoy not only being in a weird place for 8–10 hours but also the commute to and from that place. I am sure such cats exist, but experience tells me they are a minority of the species.

Dogs, on the other hand, seem like a much better fit for office revelry. And I love this day, although productivity certainly drops when there’s a dog to be fawned over.

My first experience with a dog in a nontraditional space was when my grandparents helped me move into my dorm at USC. My grandfather brought Frodo, his Irish setter, and toward the end of the day, when all boxes and heavy lifting were clearly completed by everyone on my floor, he let the dog off the leash to do sprints up and down the hall. I’ve never heard a bigger chorus of feminine Awwws than I did that day. That dog got a lot of love, and I got asked many times when he’d be visiting again. (Grandpa brought him around again once or twice, but never at peak residency hours, so that first experience was never repeated.)

And yet, the only time I ever took a dog to work was because my dog Annie had surgery and the vet sent her home but told me to keep an eye on her. I worked nights on a copy desk in Sarasota, and I knew she was so stoned she’d be good, so I took my shot. (It’s weird; I don’t remember what the surgery was. I would swear it was to get her spayed, but I’d had her for a couple years by then and I can’t imagine I would have waited so long. Anyway, moving on.) I snuck her in and stuffed her under my cubicle desk while my boss was off doing something, and she was there for five hours before anyone noticed she was there. Eventually I had to take her outside and a couple people came over and fussed over her when we came back in. My boss was inclined to be gruff about it, but when he got a load of her sad, spaced out face, he melted and just warned me not to do it again.

As y’all are well aware by now, I work from home. For me, it has been Take Your Dog to Work day every day since 2020!