My Office Dog is going to be heartbroken when I actually have to go back to the office...

It’s not because she’s not allowed in our office. It’s more that the journey will probably kill her! 

If she can’t travel on her own paws, then she’s not interested. On the odd occasion she has ventured into Central London, people have been known to ask me on the train if everything is ​“ok with your dog?” She pants and shakes like a trooper. 

I know how she feels; I’m fearful of my first venturing into The Big Smoke too. What will the world be like? What will actually go through my head when I make the decision to board the next train? How do I greet people I haven’t seen for three months? For now, those decisions can be easily parked. Personally, I am home for a long time yet. 

However, I am concerned about my own little office dog and everyone else’s office dog. If you have a pooch anything like mine, she is going to be heart broken when one day, without warning, we all get up and leave her. Meandering from the inside to the outside whenever she feels has become the norm, as has choosing to spend the day sleeping on either of my children’s beds. Normally she spends a portion of the day shut away in our kitchen. But now and quite ironically, total freedom and all the sordid trappings of no rules (she stole from the table at lunch last week — something I thought she had moved on from many years ago). 

I find it perplexing that while us humans have had much of our freedom taken away from us for a period of time, many animals have had more of a free run than ever before.

I guess this is probably a real generalisation; I’ll stick my sword into the ground and say I have no substantiating or supportive evidence to back this up. Whereas the majority of office dogs could be found in the realms of creative, media and barn conversions, moving into our new world, will the office dog begin to take a more prominent role in bringing the office together? 

I totally get that you can argue that I am a dog person so of course I’d say that, but I am finding having Meg close by me during the working day an inspiration. There have been some very dark times over recent weeks and having my best friend constantly at my side has helped enormously. She seems to instinctively know if I’m in a good place and will come over to see if we should have a celebratory biscuit. If I’m in a bad place, she trots over to see if we should have a consoling biscuit!!

It’s impossible to accurately predict the future and where our event industry will go. I’ve read so many differing opinions. One thing I do know is the impact for my whippet, when we go back to the office, will be the one challenge I couldn’t have predicted when we started.