Dog Day Afternoon

Today is National Take Your Dog to Work Day. For the third year in a row, I’ve organized TYDtWD at Ave Maria Press. We have always had pretty good participation, but his year was the most successful. We had 10 dogs in the office today: 2 of them in my department, 2 in editorial, 2 in customer service, and 4 in marketing. There were a couple of little dogs—a toy Poodle and a mixed breed, some medium-sized—a Lab mix, a Wheaten, a Bassett Hound, and another mixed breed, and the big boys—a Goldendoodle, two yellow Labs and Hagrid the gigantic Collie.


Every year, I’ve put up a fenced-in area off the side of the building and we have play time for all the dogs. We vote on awards and last year we even had a talent contest. This year, my friend Jillian helped me out. She came up with the idea of a beach theme and having a costume contest. She also organized some really cute games. We had a race where each contestant had to run holding the dog’s leash and a spoon balancing a potato in the same hand (pictured). Hagrid won that event hands down. All those early morning runs have really paid off for him. He didn’t even know he was in training! We also played musical simon says. We walked around in a circle to music and when the music cut out the judge would call out a command like “Sit.” The last dog to carry out the command was out. Hagrid did OK, but they got to some commands he doesn’t know like, “Speak,” and “Roll Over,” and he was knocked out of contention. Then we had the costume contest. I thought that with the beach theme, everyone would go for the Hawaiian shirts and leis, so Hagrid dressed up as Gilligan. He didn’t win the contest, Oliver the Goldendoodle dressed as a Parrothead and he stole the show (pictured). Then everyone voted on beach-themed awards like, “Buff enough to wear a Speedo,” and “Most likely to make a splash.” Hagrid won the “Chillin' on the beach with a margarita” award. My friend Susana’s toy Poodle, Max, won “Most likely to become shark bait.” Hee.

Everyone had fun except those spoil sports around here who don’t like dogs (it’s unconstitutional, I tell you). We are so lucky that our boss, Tom, is a dog-lover. If it were up to me, there would be a dog in the office every day.

It’s time to go home now and Hagrid is ready. He’s sleeping under my desk. I’m sure he has some stories to tell his sister (who was just in the office Wednesday because she had to go to the vet). I know he is going to sleep like a rock tonight. Maybe he’ll even let me sleep in tomorrow! Probably just wishful thinking...

Have a great weekend!
Love, K10