(NY Post: Anne Wermiel)
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Lucy is a rare breed of office-goer: She practically races to work in the morning, adores every single one of her colleagues and even relishes one-on-one time with her boss.
There’s just one difference: Lucy has four legs and tail. The 1-year-old whippet-terrier mix is such a fixture at the DUMBO office of the JAR Group, a digital marketing agency where her owner Margaux Guyonneau works as a digital strategist, that she even has her own title: “chief cuteness officer.”
“She’s a complete ham,” says the 23-year-old Guyonneau, who has brought Lucy to work almost daily since the pup was 9 weeks old. “She knows her place and responsibility in the office. She keeps us happy.”
Guyonneau, a NoLIta resident, is in good company. According to a 2012 survey by the American Pet Products Association, an estimated 1.4 million dog owners took their pooches to work in 2010, an average of 22 times a month. Meanwhile, high-profile companies such as Google, Amazon, and TV’s “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” have made headlines in recent years for their dog-friendly policies.
And studies show positive effects of welcoming Fido into the office. A 2012 study by Virginia Commonwealth University found that employees who bring their dogs to work experienced less stress and higher job satisfaction. A 2010 study by Central Michigan University found that when dogs were present in a group of workers, they were more likely to trust and collaborate with each other.
Across the city, where most canine-friendly businesses skew toward small and creative-oriented, employers say the presence of man’s best friend presents some challenges (hello, allergic co-workers, potty-training pups and restrictive building rules) — but is good for their bottom line overall.
At the JAR Group, CEO A.J. Lawrence has welcomed pooches into his company since its founding in 2006 — as long as all his employees are comfortable with it.
“Having dogs in the office is great for productivity,” he says. “A little bit of playing with a dog makes everyone happier and more relaxed to do better work for our clients.”
The informal policy was great news for Guyonneau, a first-time dog-owner who fell in love with Lucy at a shelter last year.
“I couldn’t have a puppy if I couldn’t bring her to work,” she says.
Still, the first few months of puppyhood required Guyonneau to ditch her desk every three hours to take Lucy out for a walk. Fortunately, several of her canine-loving co-workers pitched in with training tips and willingly took their newest team member for a stroll when Guyonneau was stuck on client calls.
“Everyone’s been really understanding and helpful,” says Guyonneau — even when her pup had the occasional accident in the office. “Thank goodness for concrete floors!” she quips.
These days, Lucy stays home (and relies on a dog walker) when Guyonneau has client meetings and can’t keep a close eye on her. But when Lucy is in the office, her routine includes playing fetch with whichever co-worker is free, afternoon naps by the office manager’s desk and romps with Penny, a colleague’s whippet and pitbull mix who comes to the office occasionally.
It all helps ease the stress of a fast-paced agency environment, says Guyonneau.
“You can get a last-minute e-mail from a client, and it feels really stressful in the moment,” she says. “But then you look down and Lucy’s like, ‘Hey! I’m playing with my toys!’ You kind of realize, ‘OK, take a breath. It’s fine.’ ”
For creative companies like the JAR Group, the presence of an office pooch can even promote the firm’s unique culture to clients and potential hires.
“More than a few prospective clients, in seeing we have dogs, start telling us about their own dogs. It definitely helps with bonding,” says Lawrence.
LinkedIn career expert Nicole Williams agrees: “If you are attempting to create a laid-back environment and that’s part of your brand, dogs can actually work to your advantage,” she says.
But Williams, who has worked with dog-friendly clients, knows from personal experience that not every Rex and Rover is a fit for office life. She brought her own beloved Boston terrier to work five years ago, which turned out to be a professional no-no.
“She was crying when I tried to confine her to my office, which was distracting. And then my colleagues, upon hearing about her, kept stopping by to marvel about how tiny and cute she was — distracting them, and me,” she recalls. “I remember thinking, ‘If I let her out to run the hall, I’ll get all the commotion out in one fell swoop. One of the partners was in his office with the door slightly ajar, talking to a client. I will never forget the look of disdain for this little puppy.”
Williams never brought the pup to the office again, and it changed her perspective on the reality of bringing dogs to work.
“The problem is thateveryone thinks their dog is the best — doesn’t stink, doesn’t shed, doesn’t bark — but your colleagues might think otherwise,” she notes.
Many of the city’s commercial buildings don’t even allow dogs. But this doesn’t stop the owner of one Midtown p.r. firm from allowing her employees to sneak their small pooches in via covert dog carriers.
“We have to smuggle them by the doorman,” says the owner, who preferred to remain anonymous so her landlord doesn’t nab her.
The firm’s four resident canines ride up in the freight elevator and have yet to betray their presence with an ill-timed bark.
“It makes everyone happy, and they’re really well-behaved,” reasons the employee. Plus, their small office gets little traffic: “The only regular visitor is the mailman — and he’s obsessed with dogs.”
At Viggle, a Manhattan-based mobile app, dogs are so central to company culture that execs only looked for office space inFido-friendly buildings. The 85-person startup settled on a Flatiron District space with an open floor plan, and now hosts an average of four dogs a day — ranging from a tea-cup Yorkie to a Great Dane.
The company doesn’t have a formal policy, says Greg Consiglio, Viggle’s president. Instead, the dogs-welcome practice grew out of an early founder’s tendency to bring his pup to every meeting.
“For us, it’s not about being dog-friendly — it’s about being people-friendly,” he says. “I want to build an environment where you bring who you are to work, you don’t have to be somebody different. And for people who have dogs, dogs are a big part of their lives.”
This doesn’t mean the rotating cast of co-workers’ canines is a pack of perfect angels: Gabi Rubin, Viggle’s director of headquarters, recalls a 2011 incident when her mutt Turner sneaked into a room where a candidate was waiting to be interviewed, and relieved himself in the corner.
“I’m reminded the comment that day was, ‘Gabi, we’ve got a No. 2 in Room No. 2,’ ” she says. “That was pretty embarrassing.”
And then there was a former employee with canine allergies. Rubin says fellow employees were “sympathetic” to his situation, and kept their pooches quarantined in a closed-off conference room — if they brought them in at all.
For “lone dissenters” like the allergic employee (who eventually left for other reasons), it can be difficult to voice anti-dog sentiment, says Debra Vey Voda-Hamilton, a mediator who specializes in pet issues.
“There are people who don’t want to be in the same space with an animal, [which] is not a ‘politically correct’ position to espouse,” she says.
And there is often little recourse for those with a fear of dogs: “They can suffer in silence, be ridiculed for their position or cajoled into getting over their phobia.”
Recently, a number of the city’s co-working spaces have opened their doors to four-legged clientele.
At the SoHo shared workspace WeWork, lifestyle publicist Christina Galasso is thrilled her 8-month-old pug, Louie, has been able to accompany her.
Not only has the setup allowed for bonding — little Louie spends most of the day sleeping or playing at her feet — but Galasso, a SoHo resident, says her gregarious sidekick has even helped her snag business, including a real estate company that hired her after falling in love with her pooch.
“I meet a ton of people through Louie,” says the 34-year-old, “but he earned his keep with that.”