Last month I wrote about the benefits of pets in the workplace. Improved employee morale and engagement, work-life balance, recruitment and retention, and stress reduction in the workplace are just some of the many benefits to having pets at work. However, to make this experience positive for everyone there are some best practices to consider. In this blog we'll explore the top tips for bringing pets to work.

The Covid pandemic rewrote the social contract between employer and employee, creating new opportunities for work scheduling and locations. Employees discovered the benefits of working from home, achieving a better work-life balance by avoiding long commutes and other stressors associated with working outside of the home. One of those stressors includes leaving pets behind all day when they go to work.

Working in the animal welfare field can be an emotionally challenging career choice. Dealing with life and death situations, witnessing animal abuse and neglect, and struggling with limited resources when there is so much need has caused many in this field to leave and pursue other types of work.

A big part of getting people to comply with the law depends on how well they can understand what they are expected to do. When I joined DACC, many parts of the Los Angeles County ordinance for animals – called Title 10 – hadn’t been updated for several decades. It was full of arcane legal gobbledygook that would give an aspirin a headache. How could we expect animal owners to follow the law, and officers to enforce it, if it was so difficult to decipher?

Since the days of Noah some people have been particularly drawn to owning exotic animals. While Noah was ordered to amass his collection to save animals from a flood, these days people obtain unusual pets for different reasons. Some are attracted to the animals’ appearances, others to the novelty and attention they receive for having them as pets.

More than twenty years ago we had five large dogs (a Newfoundland, Golden Retriever, Labrador Retriever, German Shepherd, and a Samoyed/Australian Shepherd cross). They were all house pets, of course, and we spent a lot of time making sure they were well-groomed. We even had a raised bathtub in our garage with hot water to give them their baths, and the neighborhood kids loved helping me bathe and groom them.

In last month’s blog I wrote about the general animal caretaking requirements set forth in Los Angeles County Code Section 10.40.010. Those requirements apply to both pet owners as well as operators of commercial animal facilities such as grooming salons, boarding kennels, wild animal facilities, and pet shops. However, there are additional requirements set forth in Section 10.40.200 that apply directly to commercial pet breeding facilities.

Mahatma Gandhi famously said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” There is no better way to ensure the humane treatment of animals than enacting comprehensive, sensible laws to codify and enforce society’s expectations of how they will be protected.

Animal sheltering has changed dramatically in the past ten years. What was once a mainly reactive approach to lost and unwanted animals has turned into a proactive model where intervention strategies strive to prevent the separation of pets from their families in the first place. This has had tremendous positive impact on maintaining the human-animal bond and redefining the role of animal shelters in the community.

In November I received a delightful letter from a seven year old girl named Madeline, requesting our permission for her to keep a unicorn in her backyard if she could find one. I happily agreed to allow her to keep a unicorn, with conditions. These included compliance with Los Angeles County Code regarding the keeping of animals; the unicorn must have regular access to sunlight, moonbeams, and rainbows; it must be fed its favorite treat – watermelon – at least once a week; that its horn must be polished every month with a soft cloth; and any glitter used on the unicorn must be nontoxic and biodegradable.