Animals at work?

[Sunshine]

Used to work at mart of domesticated animals, so i've had quite a few animals cross my path. My new job, however, is more confined to the humans. That being said, we did have a woman bring her service monkey in the store. And i got to pet it!!! I asked permission first, of course.

[RetailWorkhorse]

Service Monkey for the win!

[Chromatix]

Very occasionally someone brings their dog to the office, but that's not very common. They also sometimes bring their kids in, and they promptly occupy the kitchen table. (Finnish kids tend to be remarkably well-behaved.)

Once however a seagull managed to get into the loft at my parents' house - a loft that had been converted into a bedroom and art studio, but was temporarily not in use. I went up there purely because I was suspicious about noises I'd heard up there for several days. And it had shat EVERYWHERE. I wasn't about to clean that mess up, so I just figured out how to shoo it out of the window that had been left open, then closed it.

Much earlier I was helping on a farm (don't ask why, it's not exactly my core competence), and I noticed that a small bird had got stuck in a barn. The windows of the barn were glazed, even though there was no door, and the bird must have gone in through the door, hit the glass on the way out, and couldn't figure out why this invisible barrier was preventing it from getting out into the sunshine again. So it was just fluttering constantly against the window and getting nowhere.

The trick then was to figure out how to take hold of it without injuring it. It turned out to be a swallow, which you might recognise as a species that spends virtually all it's life on the wing, so it wasn't going to get tired and fold it's wings for me any time soon. Fortunately as it was effectively hovering at the window, I could fold it's wings for it by taking hold with both hands from outside and above. Now a swallow turns out to be a very small bird - roughly the size of a tit - so it was hard to find a balance of holding it securely while not crushing it. But I did manage to hold onto it until I could get to a clear view of the doorway, whereupon it flew off and instantly went back to chasing insects as if nothing had happened.

[Cooper]

Yeah, we've had a few birds. My boss rescued one in a similar way. He encouraged the bird to get on a stick, and led it outside.

I found one baby bird hanging off our workshop's deck by fishing wire. It was NOT happy. It was hard to get it to sit still long enough to unwrap it.

Another group of baby birds had to be moved, as they were in a very, very high traffic area. (We're one of two access points for the lake, and they were in that access point.) Their mother came and took them later, thankfully. (It's just a myth that momma birds will ignore their babies if touched by humans.) We think they fell off of a tree over-looking the ramp.

[Ghel]

We don't have any office animals at the bank, but we have a very open-door policy about customers bringing pets in to visit. Many customers will bring their dogs in with them. We usually don't get any other pets, although Hubby brought his iguana in a few times before he started getting surly (the iguana, not Hubby).

Everybody's favorite visitor is one customer's Newfoundland, Shiva. Newfies are huge, and Shiva's no exception. She's also a service dog, not for her owner, but as a visitor to area hospitals and nursing homes. Shiva is the sweetest, softest, most well-behaved, and most adorable dog I've ever met. And I'm not even a dog person.

[Merriweather]

I don't recall ever working anywhere with animals, except one office where I was a programmer, for a while a bunch of the guys thought it was cool to each keep one of those fighting fish (betas?) on their desks - I have a suspicion they were putting them in together to fight and betting on them or something when no one else was around).

When we lived in the UK, I noticed tons of small stores and pubs had resident four-footers, usually cats. On a recent trip to New Orleans I noticed a lot of that as well there, too (well, shops, not pubs). Maybe it's just because in so many places small stores hardly exist anymore in the US, but I don't often see them - when I do, it seems to be either a quilt shop, or a bookshop.

Can I thread-jack with a cute story? When in New Orleans we went out to see a plantation.. We were chatting with the woman in the giftshop, and noticed a pretty white kitty in the shop, which we of course had to give due attention to. She was telling us that for quite a few years (I think it was 12 or so) they had a resident white cat at the plantation called Sugar (it had been a sugar plantation). Eventually, the cat passed away, and everyone missed it. Several months later, this white cat suddenly showed up and made itself at home. So they called it Splenda, since it was a Sugar substitute.

[PepperElf]

Service Monkey for the win!

One of my friends from a church I use to go had a friend who had a service monkey! I never met the woman or her monkey but from what I was told the monkey was great for picking up stuff that the woman couldn't reach etc.


At my old job a coworker told me that the store's policy was "service animals only" but... it wasn't posted anywhere so I pretty much didn't give a flying fuck. If someone brought an animal in I'd just remark on how cute it was. As far as I cared they were all service animals. *grin*

Besides, we were an electronics store so... the only "food" we sold was prepackaged snacks. As long as the dogs didn't piss on the product and behaved themselves that's all I cared about.

One puppy was just *adorable*. Another looked like a miniature husky plush toy - the fact that it was moving was the only reason I knew it was alive. And another had on a military vest with M.O.L.L.E straps.


Although my FAVORITE "bring your dog to work" story has to go to... Blue Man Group. Back when they were kinda new, they were doing an interview and showing the reporter around the studio, showcasing the instruments such as the "tubeulum" and the "drumulum" when Matt's dog ran by. Without missing a beat he said it was a "dogulum"!

Since then, BMG has a bit of a running gag about the magical quality of the "dogulum sound". Back when they were doing Intel adverts, Chris filmed a behind-the-scenes vid for a fan group (Blue Man Library) and included the "special guests" - his pair of dachshunds in a baby carrier. They also once did a demonstration of how they got the "dogulum" sound - you get a dog into a deep meditative state and then mic it... again a video of Chris, this time in full blue costume, petting one of his dogs. And, IIRC, on the old message board he once posted about the album, "It's all dogulum!"

[telecom_goddess]

This is the only store cat I know...and I"m friends with her on facebook

https://www.facebook.com/cleopatra.s...ref=ts&fref=ts

She's an awesome cat and very soft. And this is a pet store so yeah perfectly cool to have her there.

[Cooper]

Hee. She's 'product tester and queen'.

[Sapphire Silk]

Only service animals are allowed on campus or in the hospital. However, one of the volunteers has a trained therapy dog that visits the hospital once a month. She is a big hit with both patients and staff.

[Antisocial_Worker]

When I worked at Motel Hell, we once had to confiscate a guest's belongings and hold them ransom until he paid for the week's rent he owed us. He never paid, and so we kept his stuff... including a Quaker parrot.

On occasion, I would also bring one of my black cats to work on Halloween. Aside from those two stories, we were pet friendly, and so it was dogs. Dogs every day and in abundance, with the rare cat.

No, come to think of it... One other story. I got out of a speeding ticket once by showing the officer the kittens I was taking to work for my boss to see. After that, when I got to work I managed to get a picture of my then-boss, a very dignified Indian lady, with a tiny black-and-white kitten on her head.

[dendawg]

...there was no way a cat that small could have made the leap into the truck.

Don't you believe it. Cats can jump amazingly high whenever they get into the mood for it.

[XCashier]

My brother used to ride our Bear (yeah, how...unoriginal LOL) like a horse back in the day, and the dog thought this was great fun! Unfortunately, Bear was stolen from our yard one night...but I've never forgotten him or how awesome he was.

Aw. I'm sorry about Bear.

Back OT, I did work in an office that had a cat. That did not go well at all. Not to say that it couldn't work, as long as the animal is spayed/neutered, housebroken and friendly or at least tolerant of the people there. I've seen dogs and cats in many stores, usually used bookstores or model train shops. Those animals are usually politely friendly, happy to sit pretty while the customers coo over and pet them.

I also know of a few antique stores with pet birds and I've seen a doctor's office and a car wash with fish tanks. It is amusing to note that everyone in the waiting room was watching the fish and ignoring the TV!

[dalesys]

... It is amusing to note that everyone in the waiting room was watching the fish and ignoring the TV!

Of course. The average IQ of the commentators is at least an order of magnitude greater.

[TheCheerfulTreeRat]

As long as it doesn't meet the OFFOG! Or maybe that's what really happened?

My Eustace says Peaslake doesn't mind...