Animals at work?

[dragon_wings]

My family has owned a car shop for 13 years. Ever since we've had a dog (first Ginger, then her and Rat, and now just Rat) my mom or dad would take the dog(s) to work with them. As my parents only ever worked in the office and never on the cars the dogs were welcome in the shop. And customers were free to bring their dogs as well.

[thatcrazyredhead]

One of my coworkers trains service dogs. She has whichever dog she's currently training with her at work probably 80% of the time. It's really nice having a dog in the office. It just makes me smile. They're very well trained and well behaved, of course. And we're all trained to ask my coworker before petting the dog or saying hello because she has to tell them that they're not working anymore and can take a break to socialize.

[wolfie]

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).

Why couldn't they have fully-debugged, production-level fish at the office? Did all the fish have good-looking fins, or were they ragged? If they had been putting them to fight together, in short order the losing fish would be dead, and the winner's fins would be shredded, so if the population remained steady and the fish looked good, it's unlikely they were staging fights.

[BrenDAnn]

We have one woman who has a little (think tucked under her arm when she comes in) service dog. The problem is, the woman is lazy about putting the tags on her dog. She's just now gotten to the point where they're on the dog all the time, and she's gotten a service vest for it. Works out well...except she tried putting the dog on my counter once, with another customer there who of course got outraged. *sigh* Other than that, no animals allowed. As for animals other places, the one that sticks out is the cancer clinic mom went to in Iowa City. They had fish tanks there. Beautiful, tropical fish, too. They were fascinating to watch.

[PepperElf]

Unless all the dogs are familiar, I would advise against bringing a rabbit in. I know dogs who are great with kids and cats but when they see a "prey" animal, they go right after it.

I read this one again and... this is why I usually ask before I bring my dog into a store. She's rat terrier / italian greyhound, which means she's got a really strong prey-drive and a strong chase drive too.

so a rabbit? o yeah she'd go after that in a heartbeat.

[Solacelawlz]

yea no animals for us... I work inside a vault so wouldn't work out too well for the animals. Would be rather boss to have a ferret in here though!! then i could teach him trixy things!!

[Rapscallion]

Appropriately for this thread, I was called out to the alarm system at work on Sunday. The control panel said the PIR in the invoicing office had been activated, and that it was the only part of the system with an issue.

I wandered in, assuming that a driver had collected their paperwork and done something odd, only to find a robin flying around in there. Red breast, wings, feathers, that sort of thing.

Took a bit of chasing around with a fleece and a fortuitous landing position for me to capture the fellow and release him or her outside.

Gave me a smiley feeling for a few hours afterwards, though I think the bugger got back in.

Rapscallion

[bhskittykatt]

Raps' story reminded me of this.

It was a hot day, and BFF and I went to a pizza joint downtown that serves really good 'zza, and we don't go there nearly enough. The door is open (I'm not sure this building has an A/C), and inside it's just us, a couple other tables, and the guy working the counter.

In strolls a pigeon. It wanders around the main floor, picking up crumbs. BFF and I look around, and no one seems to notice. The pigeon nonchalantly spends a few minutes making a big round, with no one apparently caring, then waltzes right out the door and continues down the sidewalk on its original heading.

When we mentioned it to the guy who brought our pizza, he said "Yeah, he's in here almost every day. He does that." The guy's tone was a bit exasperated. I'm guessing they may have tried to dissuade the pigeon in the past before finally giving up and letting the bird do its thing.

We laughed at it. You had to see this pigeon to get the full effect. It just had such a nonchalant attitude, and had its routine down. It was amusing.

[Ghel]

When my hubby worked at the juvenile correction facility, they had a problem with bats. They were constantly chasing a bat out of one room or another.

The building was an old, 3-story school that had been abandoned for about a decade before they set it up for juvenile corrections and rehabilitation. Hubby bought a fishing net on a 15' pole to catch the bats with. Bats, as you may know, need to drop before they can start flying, so he would position the net under them, then bump them with the edge of the net so they'd fall in. Then he could take them outside the building and release them.

The main corridor on the first floor had 15-foot ceilings and ran the entire length of the building. One day, there was a bat flying down the main corridor and back. Even on the rare occassions it would land at one end of the hall, by the time Hubby got to that end, it had taken off again. So he tried a different tactic: he stood in the middle of the hallway with his net. He waited for the bat to fly towards him and swung the net into the air, snagging the bat out of the air and twirled the net around so the bat wouldn't escape. Then he looked around to see if anybody had seen this feat, and nobody was around.

[Amajean]

Policy for both places I've worked at is that only service animals.
With the hardware store, they didn't follow through. Someone brought in a ferret once and it pissed in front of my register (of course SC didn't tell me) .
With the porn shop, sm is far more strict, however lap dogs/kitties can come in if owner carries them at ALL times.

[sms001]

Had to review this thread for some clues/tips, as several people are now bringing small dogs to the restaurant and claiming them to be service animals. Anyone know if certification is by state or county or what?

With the porn shop, sm is far more strict,

Ah yes. Context is everything.

[TheSHAD0W]

Had to review this thread for some clues/tips, as several people are now bringing small dogs to the restaurant and claiming them to be service animals. Anyone know if certification is by state or county or what?

I don't believe you're allowed to ask for certification. You can eject a customer if a "service dog" causes a disturbance, but that's it.

[Sandman]

My mechanic has a few cats. Some of them are relaxers and some of them are rodent prevention devices :-D

[Chromatix]

AFAIK, most service animals are supposed to wear a jacket or harness that makes the fact pretty obvious. That's certainly true for a Guide Dog - who wouldn't be much use without the distinctive harness with it's rigid handle - but it should also be true for animals used for less conventional roles.

So is it safe to assume that an animal without a harness isn't actually a service animal?

[mhkohne]

AFAIK, most service animals are supposed to wear a jacket or harness that makes the fact pretty obvious. That's certainly true for a Guide Dog - who wouldn't be much use without the distinctive harness with it's rigid handle - but it should also be true for animals used for less conventional roles.

So is it safe to assume that an animal without a harness isn't actually a service animal?

I don't think so. There's a FAQ at http://www.ada.gov/qasrvc.htm, it sounds like you pretty much have to take their word for it.