In the five months (as of yesterday) since I’ve joined the ranks of the work-from-home brigade, I have developed a new appreciation for my two dogs. Sure, being at home with 2 dogs has its challenges, but come on, does anyone in the standard brick-and-mortar corporate environment come up to you while you’re tapping away on your keyboard and lick your leg? In a non-litigious manner, of course.

Daisy, my schnauzer mix, is an amazing mood barometer for me. If I am getting particularly tense…or cranky…or my voice gets a little too loud on the phone, she runs up to my chair with a droopy tail, jumps in my lap and gives me Big Daisy Eyes. I’m not sure if she’s afraid of me or if she’s trying to calm me down but either way, it works. If dogs can smell cancer, I don’t see why they couldn’t detect a significant increase in the blood flow to my brain. I definitely could have used Daisy at the beginning of the year at my old job.

A lot of the benefits of having pets when you’re working from home sound so simplistic…needing to take them outside a few times a day gets you out of your chair and outside as well. You don’t quite realize the magnitude of this until one day, you look up from your laptop and realize the 5 o’clock news is on and you’re still sitting in your pajamas.

I don’t think it would be quite as easy if Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum were still puppies who demanded 500% of my time, but now that they’re getting older, I get all of the perks and benefits. They come over and socialize when they want to and nap the other 23 hours and 45 minutes of the day. If I have a bad conference call, I can scratch Cookie’s tummy and put everything back into its proper perspective.

Neither Cookie nor Daisy is particularly motivated or equipped to provide any concrete service to me during the workday. The lack of opposable thumbs precludes performing any standard clerical duties such as filing, answering the phone or dropping off uber-husband’s dry cleaning. Cookie is blind, so picking up lunch for me at Jason’s Deli is out of the question. But, they both do a very effective job of protecting my workplace from immediate security threats such as the neighborhood stay-at-home-moms, the UPS driver and the ChemLawn guy. Can’t buy that kind of loyalty.