I personally am not a big fan of pets in the workplace. I realize if it's also your home it's different but you cannot legally subject employees to it. First, it's a lawsuit waiting to happen. Second, it's a huge safety hazard. Third, it's really hard to talk to customers while the shop dog is yapping loudly at the customer and the owner does absolutely nothing about it. Very unprofessional. We've actually had customers refuse to come in because of the dog at the front door. p.s. It's a Yorkie.
I don't know how many times our shop pets have pittled or poo'd around the production area. p.s. Not my shop.
I'm a lover of all animals just not so much "pet people". Those who treat their pets better than their children or even remotely like children. Pets do not belong in your lap while driving either. And if your "pet" nips at any of my children they will become wall art. Don't know how many times I've tried going for a walk and dogs run after my children with the pet owner in the yard on the phone and doing nothing about it. My son was viciously attacked by a chow mix while visiting family. He had to have staples in his head. What did the owners do? Keep the dog! Never went back. Later heard the dog bit the owner's hand severe enough to warrant stitches. Still kept the dog! The young couple went on to have twin boys and still kept the dog.
Be a responsible pet owner and you will gain my respect. Otherwise you're an idiot.
Sounds like you need a new job. Your bias and resentment is coming through loud and clear. Your personal experience appears to have colored your perceptions about dog owners. I can't see how you can effectively and unbiasedly work for folks you hold so much resentment against.
As with most things in life and on these threads, every individual circumstance has variables.
Our pet is much better behaved, more socialized, sedate to nearly the point of comatose and friendlier than it sounds like your employer's pet is. We have not had a single issue with a client, employee, or delivery person. The mail carrier actually parks and brings us our mail if she needs to hand deliver other parcels in our complex just to see Lola. She is such a big part of our shop persona that our webmaster demanded that she have a spot on our website and customers actually come in and ask about her.
In fact, our employees look forward to seeing her and bring treats as well as use playing with her as a stress reducer. Just like we do.
We take our work very seriously, act professionally and would never let our dog interfere with that professionalism. That being said, our work place is casual, approachable and friendly to all. You may not like it, or respect it, but our clients, peers and people we encounter daily in our shop would be saddened if we left her alone at home all day. Which is why we don't. She is not a possession to be just cooped up and trotted out when its convenient. She is a part of our family whether you embrace that or not. I'm afraid in a country with 90 million dogs, your view of things is probably in the minority. We vacuum and sweep daily, the dog is well cared for and 9 years old, so potty training happened 8.75 years ago. Accidents like that don't happen to normal dogs who aren't neglected. Ours gets walked to and from home to the shop and once in the middle of the lunch break.
She's not a wolverine, she's a freaking Black Lab mix. I think a worker who shows up hungover regularly or is distracted by his or her cell phone presents a bigger safety hazard. Those are two very frequent American conditions in the workplace.
I totally empathize with you on the terror and outrage the attack on your son must have provoked. As a pre-teen, I was viciously attacked by the landlord's Great Dane in the backyard of the apartment complex where we lived. It eventually fell to its death jumping through a huge picture window to get at the neighbor's dog. That dog was nuts! I was fearful of dogs until meeting my wife and started dating in senior year of high school. I never stepped foot inside of her parent's home for the first few months of our dating. Little by little she would bring her Irish Setter and other mutt of a dog out on the porch and ever since then I cannot imagine a life without a dog being in it.
From your perspective, we are those "pet people" and that's ok. I know how healthy my relationship is with my pet and how I don't look at humans in a lesser way just because we love our pets a lot. We're capable of doing both. We're both pretty realistic about her, and all the other dogs we've had. When they are in pain and can't enjoy life any longer, we do the right thing and are merciful about it. That is our obligation to them.
My spoiling them isn't impacting your life, but humans spoiling and catering to their children's every whim is taxing our planet's finite resources a great deal.
Personally, I don't like people who let their kids run around like little animals, think the world revolves around them and then rule the parents and everyone else's lives and experiences around them. I've been to enough restaurants with others with kids and seen their kids tear the place up, behave badly and the parents think its either adorable or don't leave even a cent of an extra tip for the severs despite having a much larger cleanup ahead of them. I've seen enough spoiled, self-entitled kids of all ages, that i'm positive that it isn't only pet owners who need to look in the mirror about how people are conducting themselves.
We're all free to act on pet peeves as we like. Sorry, for the bad pun.
There was a case in Santa Fe, NM where I had taken a job training to be a 911 Dispatcher and while on duty on day, a man's pit bulls literally killed and partially ate his own elderly father. I took his initial call and I can tell you, it was brutal. There are over 90 million dogs in America, and 4.5 million "bites" with only 30 fatalities, so that case was an enormous tragedy.
