
Dogs improve office productivity - robg
http://www.economist.com/node/16789216?story_id=16789216
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zeteo
I'm not familiar with the basic research, but the article itself is one big
non sequitur. It starts with the subtitle "Dogs improve office productivity"
and proceeds to establish that:

1\. "those who had had a dog ranked their team-mates more highly on measures
of trust, team cohesion and intimacy"

2\. in the Prisoner's Dilemma game, dogs "made volunteers 30% less likely to
snitch"

At best, this tangentially indicates that the presence of one dog in the
office has the potential to improve team cohesion. There's a big step from
that to productivity.

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jwr
The issues with bringing a dog to work (and more generally, with raising a
dog) are similar to personal hygiene. Some people raise a dog properly — you
then get well-behaved animals that are a joy to be with. And some people just
don't care too much.

Just as you can't generalize about programmer's hygiene (or can you?), you
can't generalize about how dogs behave at work.

And BTW, raising a dog is a commitment many people should not undertake. It
requires a lot of work and dedication. All too often people blame problems on
dogs, while it is practically always the human who failed.

~~~
tom_b
Raising (and properly training) a dog is wonderful opportunity for the
trainer. You'll _practice_ patience, creativity, empathy, and the value of
having a long-term plan. These are maybe not bad skills to develop as a hacker
or startup founder.

That said, some of the most trainable dogs are the easiest to get into trouble
with and I speak from experience. Most people probably don't have enough
experience to gauge the effort or different ways to undertake a dog training
program.

I recommend Karen Pryor's "Don't Shoot the Dog" for people interested in
training philosophy. Be aware, there are rabid (sorry, couldn't resist)
advocates for various dog training approaches online and they take great
pleasure in destroying forums, online discussions, and generally making sure
that only their viewpoint is "the one true way."

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philk
I might be an antisocial misfit but I find the idea of having stranger's dogs
hanging around while I'm trying to work distracting at the very least.

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char
I haven't had much experience with dogs in the workplace, but having my rat
around while I work is a very positive experience. He isn't particularly
distracting, and he certainly reduces stress levels. I don't know if I'm a
more productive programmer because of the rat, but I'm definitely happier
while working.

~~~
angrycoder
How's Hermione doing these days?

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superk
When I worked in a fancy NYC startup back in 1999 we had an AIBO - Sony's
$5000 robot dog.

Having an "OFF" switch probably helped productivity.

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cstuder
I agree completely: The dog of my office mate successfully keeps others (i.e.
management) from comming into our office. That makes them think twice about
giving me more tasks.

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GiraffeNecktie
My overly friendly dog will definitely improve your productivity if by
'productivity' you mean the number of times you are able to scratch a dog's
belly over eight hours.

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stretchwithme
Dogs have been intimately intertwined with human survival for thousands of
years. They're actually more emotionally intelligent than most of the
primates.

A dog will risk its own life to save another dog. And at least one saved a
human baby for a very likely death.

But yeah, I am not crazy about people letting their dogs roam free at the
office and peeing on things while their guardians are stuck in a meeting. That
is not cool. If you can't keep them in your office or cube, they should be
left at home.

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sbov
Haven't they also shown that interacting with pets (petting, etc.) can reduce
stress? Less stress in a team environment could have all sorts of positive
results.

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azakus
Wouldn't increase productivity if I'm allergic to dogs and it causes me to
sneeze instead of think.

~~~
hga
Yeah; I grew up as something of a dog person and liked/loved our general
property dog plus my father's hunting dogs (short haired pointers, about the
nicest breed in the world) that I took care of ... but within a quarter
century or so I became allergic to dogs in general (not sure why, having had
terrible allergies all my life).

This sort of thing sounds like something you could make work in special cases
but could fall apart in all sorts of ways. E.g. I show up to interview at your
office (at which time I'd immediately start reacting), and I'd have to say
sorry, I like the office dog(s) but I can work here only if you banish them
and _seriously_ clean the carpets....

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towndrunk
Not sure how popular this book would be here but if you are a dog lover then
you will relate to Rescuing Sprite. It's a good read.

[http://www.amazon.com/Rescuing-Sprite-Lovers-Story-
Anguish/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Rescuing-Sprite-Lovers-Story-
Anguish/dp/1416559132)

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ancornwell
I designed and cut vinyl signs for a summer and we had a lazy dog that loved
listening to the Yankees in the afternoon. The dog could have been an adept
WalMart greeter. If they're not barking or threatening, they're quite
charming.

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lzw
Not in my experience. Barking, piddling on the floor, having to interact with
the dog owners when they come over to fetch the dogs, etc. Of course these
were probably not the better dog owners out there, they thought everyone was
delighted to have dogs in the office.

The dogs were nice when I wasn't working. I enjoyed petting them, etc. but bad
for productivity.

~~~
samratjp
I wonder how the Googlers handle this @work. Obviously, in overall, they are a
productive bunch, but it makes me wonder upon your comment if the dog friendly
groups get as much distracted or not.

~~~
houseabsolute
It depends. Some people bring their dogs in to work every day. If the dog is
not well-behaved and quiet, this can be very annoying. For example, when
you're having a meeting about integrating two systems and a fifty pound animal
is moving about under the table. If you work near a cafeteria, people will
frequently leave their dogs tied up outside, which often precipitates barking,
even though both leaving the animal tied up and bringing a barker to work are
explicitly against policy. Then there was the time a coworker brought her dog
in and there was a seriously enormous (>1 foot diameter) wet spot on the floor
where the dog had lain and slobbered all day long.

There are definitely good aspects to having a dog-friendly culture, but it can
be trying for us non-owners when some coworkers forget that the comfort of
other humans takes priority over that of their pet.

~~~
jrockway
Is there anything you don't hate?

~~~
houseabsolute
You could answer that question for yourself by reading my comment history. A
substantial portion of my last ten comments have positive sentiment, and some
of the negative ones are about other negative comments (e.g. The one where
some idiot floated the idea that the US will shortly go the way of post-
Communist Russia). I daresay if we compare mine to yours I come off as
downright cheery, not to mention largely civil.

But it is true that I don't think a piling on of "this is awesome" comments
are particularly useful in the average case.

I do fucking love automatic memory management.

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moby_duck
"Christopher Honts and his colleagues at Central Michigan University in Mount
Pleasant were surprised to find that there was not much research on this
question, and decided to put that right."

Who funds these clowns?

