One More Challenge The Story Of The Willits Family

It is not clear that this view can avoid the objection rooted in the possibility of pessimism i. Given his engagement with Schopenhauer, Nietzsche should have been sensitive to the worry. According to Reginster I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful.

I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: After that opening move, Nietzsche develops the idea in several more sections: Let our brilliance make them look dark. No, let us not become darker ourselves on their account, like all those who punish…. Let us look away. After that penultimate section, Nietzsche quotes the first section of Thus Spoke Zarathustra , which returns repeatedly to the same theme of affirmation see, e.

That critique is directed in large measure against aspects of morality that turn the agent against herself—or more broadly, against the side of Christianity that condemns earthly existence, demanding that we repent of it as the price of admission to a different, superior plane of being. What is wrong with these views, according to Nietzsche, is that they negate our life, instead of affirming it. The affirmation of life can be framed as the rejection of nihilism, so understood. For Nietzsche, that involves a two-sided project: Readers interested in this issue about the compatibility of Nietzschean affirmation with Nietzschean critique should also consult Huddleston, forthcoming, a, which reaches a more diffident conclusion than this entry.

If we are to affirm our life and the world, however, we had better be honest about what they are really like. Endorsing things under some illusory Panglossian description is not affirmation, but self-delusion. And arguably, in fact, no other virtue gets more, or more unqualified, praise in the Nietzschean corpus: How much truth does a spirit endure , how much truth does it dare? More and more that became for me the real measure of value. Some texts present truthfulness as a kind of personal commitment—one tied to particular projects and a way of life in which Nietzsche happens to have invested.

For example, in GS 2 Nietzsche expresses bewilderment in the face of people who do not value honesty:. I do not want to believe it although it is palpable: No, life has not disappointed me… ever since the day when the great liberator came to me: Indeed, he assigns the highest cultural importance to the experiment testing whether such a life can be well lived:.

A thinker is now that being in whom the impulse for truth and those life-preserving errors now clash for their first fight, after the impulse for truth has proved to be also a life-preserving power. Compared to the significance of this fight, everything else is a matter of indifference: To what extent can truth endure incorporation? That is the question; that is the experiment. A second strand of texts emphasizes connections between truthfulness and courage , thereby valorizing honesty as the manifestation of an overall virtuous character marked by resoluteness, determination, and spiritual strength.

Such wishful thinking is not only cognitively corrupt, for Nietzsche, but a troubling manifestation of irresolution and cowardice. Finally, it is worth noting that even when Nietzsche raises doubts about this commitment to truthfulness, his very questions are clearly motivated by the central importance of that value. As Nietzsche observes, relentless truthfulness can be corrosive for cherished values that make our lives seem worth living: But even in the face of such worries, Nietzsche does not simply give up on truthfulness.

But if truthfulness is a core value for Nietzsche, he is nevertheless famous for insisting that we also need illusion to live well. From the beginning of his career to the end, he insisted on the irreplaceable value of art precisely because of its power to ensconce us in illusion. Art and artistry carry value for Nietzsche both as a straightforward first-order matter, and also as a source of higher-order lessons about how to create value more generally.

But Nietzsche is just as invested in the first-order evaluative point that what makes a life admirable includes its aesthetic features. One last point deserves special mention. Significantly, the opposition here is not just the one emphasized in The Birth of Tragedy —that the substantive truth about the world might be disturbing enough to demand some artistic salve that helps us cope.

Nietzsche raises a more specific worry about the deleterious effects of the virtue of honesty—about the will to truth, rather than what is true—and artistry is wheeled in to alleviate them, as well:.

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If we had not welcomed the arts and invented this kind of cult of the untrue, then the realization of general untruth and mendaciousness that now comes to us through science—the realization that delusion and error are conditions of human knowledge and sensation—would be utterly unbearable. Honesty would lead to nausea and suicide.

But now there is a counterforce against our honesty that helps us to avoid such consequences: Those views would entail that the basic conditions of cognition prevent our ever knowing things as they really are, independently of us see Anderson , ; Hussain ; and the entry on Friedrich Albert Lange. But while those are the immediate allusions, Nietzsche also endorses more general ideas with similar implications—e. What is most important, however, is the structure of the thought in GS So it seems that the values Nietzsche endorses conflict with one another, and that very fact is crucial to the value they have for us Anderson This strand of thought continues to receive strong emphasis in recent interpretations—see, e.

Still others attempt to develop a position that combines aspects of both views Schacht As Reginster shows, what opposes Nietzschean freedom of spirit is fanaticism , understood as a vehement commitment to some faith or value-set given from without, which is motivated by a need to believe in something because one lacks the self-determination to think for oneself GS This appeal to self-determination suggests that we might explain the value of individuality by appeal to an underlying value of autonomy: A variety of scholars have recently explored the resources of this line of thought in Nietzsche; Anderson surveys the literature, and notable contributions include Ridley b , Pippin , , Reginster , Katsafanas b, , , , and especially the papers in Gemes and May We have seen that Nietzsche promotes a number of different values.

In some cases, these values reinforce one another. For this alone is fitting for a philosopher. We have no right to be single in anything: For example, the account of honesty and artistry explored in sections 3. As the passage makes clear, however, Nietzschean perspectives are themselves rooted in affects and the valuations to which affects give rise , and in his mind, the ability to deploy a variety of perspectives is just as important for our practical and evaluative lives as it is for cognitive life.

Meanwhile, Nietzschean pluralism has been a major theme of several landmark Nietzsche studies e. From his pluralistic point of view, it is a selling point, not a drawback, that he has many other value commitments, and that they interact in complex patterns to support, inform, and sometimes to oppose or limit one another, rather than being parts of a single, hierarchically ordered, systematic axiology. A probing investigation into the psyche was a leading preoccupation for Nietzsche throughout his career, and this aspect of his thought has rightly been accorded central importance across a long stretch of the reception, all the way from Kaufmann to recent work by Pippin , Katsafanas , and others.

For psychology is once again on the path to the fundamental problems. On the positive side, Nietzsche is equally keen to detail the psychological conditions he thinks would be healthier for both individuals and cultures see, e. Aside from its instrumental support for these other projects, Nietzsche pursues psychological inquiry for its own sake, and apparently also for the sake of the self-knowledge that it intrinsically involves GM III, 9; GS Pref.

Debate begins with the object of psychology itself, the psyche, self, or soul. This apparent conflict in the texts has encouraged competing interpretations, with commentators emphasizing the strands in Nietzsche to which they have more philosophical sympathy. In a diametrically opposed direction from those first three, Sebastian Gardner insists that, while Nietzsche was sometimes tempted by skepticism about a self which can stand back from the solicitations of inclination and control them, his own doctrines about the creation of value and self-overcoming in fact commit him to something like a Kantian transcendental ego, despite his protestations to the contrary.

These attitude types have been intensively studied in recent work see esp. Richardson and Katsafanas b, , ; see also Anderson a, Clark and Dudrick While much remains controversial, it is helpful to think of drives as dispositions toward general patterns of activity; they aim at activity of the relevant sort e. Affects are emotional states that combine a receptive and felt responsiveness to the world with a tendency toward a distinctive pattern of reaction—states like love, hate, anger, fear, joy, etc.

But what about a personal-level self to serve as the owner of such attitudes? BGE 12 provides some provocative ideas about what such a reformed conception might involve: Here Nietzsche alludes to traditional rational psychology, and its basic inference from the pure unity of consciousness to the simplicity of the soul, and thence to its indivisibility, indestructibility, and immortality.

As he notes, these moves treat the soul as an indivisible hence incorruptible atom, or monad. Nietzsche thus construes the psyche, or self, as an emergent structure arising from such sub-personal constituents when those stand in the appropriate relations , thereby reversing the traditional account, which treats sub-personal attitudes as mere modes, or ways of being, proper to a preexisting unitary mental substance— see Anderson a for an attempt to flesh out the picture; see also Gemes ; Hales and Welshon Moreover, since the drives and affects that constitute it are individuated largely in terms of what and how they represent , the psychology needed to investigate the soul must be an interpretive, and not merely and strictly a causal, form of inquiry see Pippin While this suggestion, and even the very idea of self-creation, has remained controversial both textually and philosophically see, e.

Most of us this entry included are defeated by the bewildering richness of the subject matter and content ourselves with a few observations of special relevance to our other purposes. Perhaps Alexander Nehamas Most philosophers write treatises or scholarly articles, governed by a precisely articulated thesis for which they present a sustained and carefully defended argument. Many are divided into short, numbered sections, which only sometimes have obvious connections to nearby sections.

While the sections within a part are often thematically related see, e. To the natural complaint that such telegraphic treatment courts misunderstanding, he replies that. One does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood. Thus Spoke Zarathustra is unified by following the career of a central character, but the unity is loose and picaresque-like—a sequence of episodes which arrives at a somewhat equivocal or at a minimum, at a controversial conclusion that imposes only weak narrative unity on the whole.

Lichtenberg wrote his fragments for himself rather than the public, but the strategies he developed nevertheless made a serious impact. His aphorisms revealed how the form could be extended from its essentially pedagogical origins providing compressed, memorable form for some principle or observation into a sustained, exploratory mode of reasoning with oneself. Occasionally, these aphorisms are even set up as mini-dialogues:. But the reader should take care, for not every Nietzschean aphorism is an experiment, and not every short section is an aphorism. Indeed, many sections build up to an aphorism, which enters only as a proper part included within the section, perhaps serving as its culmination or a kind of summative conclusion rather than experiment.

But the first section itself is not simply one long aphorism. Instead, the aphorism that requires so much interpretation is the compressed, high-impact arrival point of GM III, 1; the section begins by noting a series of different things that the ascetic ideal has meant, listed one after another and serving as a kind of outline for the Treatise, before culminating in the taut aphorism:. That the ascetic ideal has meant so much to man, however, is an expression of the basic fact of the human will, its horror vacui: It is to this compressed formulation, and not the entirety of the section, that Nietzsche returns when he wraps up his interpretation in GM III, But the aphoristic form is only one challenge among many.

What is more, Nietzsche makes heavy use of allusions to both contemporary and historical writing, and without that context one is very likely to miss his meaning— BGE 11—15 offers a particularly dense set of examples; see Clark and Dudrick Almost as often, Nietzsche invents a persona so as to work out some view that he will go on to qualify or reject BGE 2 is a clear example , so it can be a steep challenge just to keep track of the various voices in action within the text. Nevertheless, such comprehensive readings are there to be had. Clark and Dudrick offer a a sustained, albeit controversial, close reading exploring the unity of Part I of Beyond Good and Evil ; their efforts reveal the scope of the difficulty—they needed an entire book to explain the allusions and connections involved in just twenty-three sections of Nietzsche, covering some couple-dozen pages!

Following such connections, he proposes, allows us to understand the books as monologues presented by a narrator. It is impossible to conclude that the work is not deliberately designed to be as offensive as possible to any earnest Christian believer. He achieves both at once by ensuring that exactly those readers will be so offended by his tone that their anger will impair understanding and they will fail to follow his argument. If this is right, the very vitriol of the Genealogy arises from an aim to be heard only by the right audience—the one it can potentially aid rather than harm—thereby overcoming the problem that.

There are books that have opposite values for soul and health, depending on whether the lower soul… or the higher and more vigorous ones turn to them. Commentators have therefore expended considerable effort working out rational reconstructions of these doctrines. This section offers brief explanations of three of the most important: Others receive it as an anti-essentialist rejection of traditional metaphysical theorizing in which abstract and shifting power-centers replace stable entities Nehamas Opposing all such readings of the will to power as a doctrine in theoretical philosophy, Maudemarie Clark , see also As we saw 3.

Some commentators take this to suggest a monistic psychology in which all drives whatsoever aim at power, and so count as manifestations of a single underlying drive or drive-type. He thought that past philosophers had largely ignored the influence of their own perspectives on their work, and had therefore failed to control those perspectival effects BGE 6; see BGE I more generally.

Particularly as knowers, let us not be ungrateful toward such resolute reversals of the familiar perspectives and valuations with which the spirit has raged against itself all too long…: This famous passage bluntly rejects the idea, dominant in philosophy at least since Plato, that knowledge essentially involves a form of objectivity that penetrates behind all subjective appearances to reveal the way things really are, independently of any point of view whatsoever.

There is of course an implicit criticism of the traditional picture of a-perspectival objectivity here, but there is equally a positive set of recommendations about how to pursue knowledge as a finite, limited cognitive agent. In working out his perspective optics of cognition, Nietzsche built on contemporary developments in the theory of cognition—particularly the work of non-orthodox neo-Kantians like Friedrich Lange and positivists like Ernst Mach, who proposed naturalized, psychologically-based versions of the broad type of theory of cognition initially developed by Kant and Schopenhauer see Clark ; Kaulbach , ; Anderson , , ; Green ; Hill ; Hussain The Kantian thought was that certain very basic structural features of the world we know space, time, causal relations, etc.

In particular, the Genealogy passage emphasizes that for him, perspectives are always rooted in affects and their associated patterns of valuation. Thus, theoretical claims not only need to be analyzed from the point of view of truth, but can also be diagnosed as symptoms and thereby traced back to the complex configurations of drive and affect from the point of view of which they make sense. Nietzsche makes perspectivist claims not only concerning the side of the cognitive subject, but also about the side of the truth, or reality, we aim to know.

These efforts argue for strong connections between perspectivism and the will to power doctrine section 6. Nietzsche himself suggests that the eternal recurrence was his most important thought, but that has not made it any easier for commentators to understand. But the texts are difficult to interpret. Skeptics like Loeb are correct to insist that, if recurrence is to be understood as a practical thought experiment, commentators owe us an account of how the particular features of the relevant thoughts are supposed to make any difference Soll already posed a stark form of this challenge.

Three features seem especially salient: The supposed recurrence 1 plausibly matters as a device for overcoming the natural bias toward the future in practical reasoning. Since we cannot change the past but think of ourselves as still able to do something about the future, our practical attention is understandably future directed. But if the question is about the value of our life overall , events in the past matter just as much as those in the future, and disregarding them is a mistake, at best, and a case of motivated reasoning or dishonesty, if we are exploiting future-bias to ignore aspects of ourselves we would rather not own up to General form: By imaginatively locating our entire life once again in the future, the thought experiment can mobilize our practical self-concern to direct its evaluative resources onto our life as a whole.

Similar considerations motivate the constraint of sameness 2.

If my assessment of myself simply elided any events or features of my self, life, or world with which I was discontent, it would hardly count as an honest, thorough self-examination. The constraint that the life I imagine to recur must be the same in every detail is designed to block any such elisions. It is nevertheless clear that it does make a practical difference: Reginster proposes that the eternity constraint is meant to reinforce the idea that the thought experiment calls for an especially wholehearted form of affirmation— joy —whose strength is measured by the involvement of a wish that our essentially finite lives could be eternal.

More modestly, one might think that Nietzsche considered it important to rule out as insufficient a particular kind of conditional affirmation, which is suggested by the Christian eschatological context, and which would leave in place the judgment that earthly human life carries intrinsically negative value. After all, the devout Christian might affirm her earthly life as a test of faith , which is to be redeemed by an eternal heavenly reward should one pass that test—all the while retaining her commitment that, considered by itself, earthly life is a sinful condition to be rejected.

It is held in many university libraries and is typically cited by volume and page number using the abbreviation KGA. This entry cites published works in the English translations listed below, and for the unpublished writing, it cites the useful abridged version of the critical edition, prepared for students and scholars the Kritische Studienausgabe , KSA. Those references follow standard scholarly practice, providing volume and page numbers of the KSA , preceded by the notebook and fragment numbers established for the overall critical edition.

English translations have now appeared containing selections from the unpublished writing included in KSA , and those volumes WEN , WLN are listed among the translations in the next section. The full bibliographical information for the German editions is. Citations follow the North American Nietzsche Society system of abbreviations for reference to English translations. For each work, the primary translation quoted in the entry is listed first, followed by other translations that were consulted. Original date of German publication is given in parentheses at the end of each entry. I am grateful to Rachel Cristy for exchanges that helped me work out basic ideas for the structure and contents of this entry.

Joshua Landy, Andrew Huddleston, Christopher Janaway, and Elijah Millgram provided helpful feedback on a late draft, and each saved me from several errors. Friedrich Nietzsche First published Fri Mar 17, Life and Works 2. Critique of Religion and Morality 3.

One More Challenge-the Story of The Willits Family 9781462004133 Paperback

The Self and Self-fashioning 5. Critique of Religion and Morality Nietzsche is arguably most famous for his criticisms of traditional European moral commitments, together with their foundations in Christianity. Despite turning her own suffering against her, the move paradoxically offers certain advantages to the agent—not only does her suffering gain an explanation and moral justification, but her own activity can be validated by being enlisted on the side of punishment self-castigation: For every sufferer instinctively seeks a cause for his suffering; still more precisely, a perpetrator, still more specifically, a guilty perpetrator who is susceptible to suffering, and the ascetic priests says to him: GM III, 15 Thus, Nietzsche suggests, The principal bow stroke the ascetic priest allowed himself to cause the human soul to resound with wrenching and ecstatic music of every kind was executed—everyone knows this—by exploiting the feeling of guilt.

A well-known passage appears near the opening of the late work, The Antichrist: Everything that is born of weakness. The feeling that power is growing , that resistance is overcome. GS After that opening move, Nietzsche develops the idea in several more sections: For example, in GS 2 Nietzsche expresses bewilderment in the face of people who do not value honesty: Nietzsche often recommends the pursuit of knowledge as a way of life: An important consideration for employers is their legal responsibilities regarding dogs in the workplace in the event that a dog injures an employee.

Dog bite laws vary from state to state, and the definition of owner or keeper of the dog is particularly important for employers. In a court case in Connecticut, the employer was not found to be a keeper. Some employees may be uncomfortable with a dog in the workplace because they are afraid of them.

The intensity of the fear or anxiety responses can be mild or severe, as in a phobia. A dog phobia is a type of animal-specific phobia, defined as a marked fear or anxiety about the animal at levels that are out of proportion to the actual danger, active avoidance of the animal, and clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupation, or other areas of functioning.

For someone with a dog phobia, responses including fear, anxiety, and even panic may be triggered by the mere presence of a dog or even images or thoughts about dogs [ ]. Animal-specific phobias have a prevalence rate in the general population that ranges from 3. In addition to dog fears and phobias, it is important for employers to consider the perceptions and attitudes of employees regarding dogs in the workplace. Perceptions of dogs can differ appreciably across different societies and cultures.

For example, using dogs as a food source is a historical and cultural practice in some countries such as South Korea and Vietnam [ ], but it remains taboo in the United States and other western cultures where dogs are kept only as pets. In other cultures, dogs are not kept as pets because the transmission of diseases, such as rabies, from dogs to humans is a significant concern [ ]. Practitioners of some religions traditionally do not view animals as house pets.

For example, people who practice the religion of Islam often do not have a favorable attitude towards dogs and having a dog as a pet is extremely uncommon in many predominately Muslim areas of the world [ ]. Yet, there are Muslims who have countered with their own interpretation and embrace dogs [ ]. Even so, employees with some religious or cultural heritages may find the prospect of sharing a workspace with a dog objectionable. Dogs may provide various benefits to employees in a workplace, but the care and welfare concerns of the animal is an important consideration [ 53 ].

Animal welfare concerns are often described using the Five Freedoms, a list of five statements describing what animals are entitled to written in in the United Kingdom by a commission addressing welfare concerns in agricultural settings [ ]. The Five Freedoms are: These have been incorporated into the philosophies of many animal welfare organizations, including the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Association of Shelter Veterinarians, and the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe.

The welfare concerns of dogs in laboratory and shelter settings also have been formally addressed. Dogs have been used as subjects in psychological and biomedical research since at least the early s [ ]. Today, the use of dogs in research settings in the U. The guidelines specify the size, temperature, and types of the enclosures, describe appropriate types of environmental enrichment e. The Association of Shelter Veterinarians ASV created the Guidelines for Standards of Care for Animal Shelters, which describes similar guidelines for cage sizes, enrichment, socialization, and cleaning.

The ASV guidelines also describe methods to reduce zoonoses and animal-related injuries to humans. More recently, guidance has been provided for ensuring the welfare of therapy and assistance animals [ ]. Regardless of the setting, responsible pet owners, service-dog handlers, or therapy-dog handlers must be sensitive to the health and well-being of his or her dog at all times. This includes being aware of stressful environments and their effects on the dog, ensuring that the dog is allowed ample time to engage in play and other species-typical behaviors, and accommodating changes in energy levels due to old age.

By making accommodation for dogs in the workplace, employers also may bear some responsibility for ensuring that animal welfare concerns are continuously addressed. Additional welfare considerations may need to be made in work environments in which multiple dogs are present to ensure the safety of both dogs and employees.

Fights between dogs have the potential to injure both the dogs and the people attempting to separate them. Dog-to-dog interactions are evaluated in the Canine Good Citizen Test [ ], which is another benefit to using it to screen dogs permitted in the workplace. Workplaces may wish to implement strict on-leash guidelines and plan the work environment so that dogs are not close to one another to prevent conflict. Consulting with an applied animal behaviorist for site-specific recommendations before permitting multiple dogs in the work environment may also be advisable.

In addition to concerns about the well-being of the dog, the well-being of the service dog-handler team is an important consideration. When service dogs become a part of the work environment, employers can make a concerted effort to prepare the employees in the workplace by providing education and training on service dog etiquette and establishing and respecting boundaries for all employees. Any such interventions are typically planned with the service dog handler to respect their privacy and autonomy [ 53 ]. Until the knowledge gaps are filled by more empirical research and reports of successes and failures, human resource personnel can carefully consider the wide range of issues that are associated with the decision to accept dogs in the workplace.

The potential benefits and appropriateness of dogs in the workplace can be evaluated with respect to employee well-being, job performance, health and safety, and social interactions. Exploratory research on service dogs in the workplace has called for caution in implementing employment site policies and procedures [ ]. A service dog team can work directly with the employer to ameliorate the concerns in the process of requesting an accommodation for a dog to assist with essential functions of the job.

For the employee with a disability, the dog is not a pet or in the workplace for the benefit of all employees but a working dog that is part of an essential support system. Based on the current, albeit limited evidence base, we offer the following specific considerations for human resource personnel tasked with addressing the inclusion of pets in the workplace in six topic areas of diversity, employee relations, ethics and corporate responsibility, organizational and employee development, safety and security, and legal policy see Table 1.

Related to issues of diversity, it is important to recognize the cultural or religious perspectives of employees toward dogs and, if possible, seek appropriate accommodations for their beliefs and preferences. This can be accomplished only if employers are informed. The method of assessment can be formal e. Additionally, an article by Cash and Gray [ ] provides a framework for accommodating different religions in the workplace that may be helpful.

Considerations and suggested resources for additional guidance for accommodating dogs in the workplace. Allowing pets in the workplace undoubtedly affects employee relations. To avoid potential conflicts, it is important to devise a strategy for incorporating employee input into decisions involving dogs in the workplace. Some employees may be hesitant to express their reservations or concerns because of fear of judgment by other employees, so an avenue for anonymous submission of feedback may be appropriate.

Some of their recommendations include strong management commitment, effective communication among all stakeholders, and input from a health and safety professional. Additionally, to accommodate workers with dog-related fears or phobias, employers could provide them with an opportunity to privately disclose their fears or anxiety to their supervisors or human resources personnel. The employer or human resource managers will need to determine at what point the objections of one or more employees to the inclusion of dogs are sufficient to limit or exclude dogs from the workplace.

1. One More Challenge-the Story of the Willits Family by Tracy L. Willits (2011, Paperback).
2. Forgotten Fundamentals of Effective Leadership.
3. Curses, A Mobley Meadows Novel.
4. Of Wolves and Witches and Fireballs in the Sky (adult fairy tales);
5. Friedrich Nietzsche (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
6. Words of Awakening!
7. Friedrich Nietzsche;

Ethical and animal welfare concerns are important considerations for companies. Accordingly, the development of policies and procedures for the treatment and care of dogs in the workplace is an important step towards ensuring that dogs are treated humanely. This holds true for service dogs and would support successful integration of a service dog team [ 53 ].

Although published guidance specific to the care of dogs in pet-friendly workplaces is limited, there are resources from other arenas that may be helpful. The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals may be helpful in understanding humane and accepted practices and standards to ensure animal welfare. Although The Guide and other similar resources are intended for research and laboratory settings, they address many of the important animal welfare and employee health and safety concerns.

Additionally, welfare guidelines for therapy and assistance animals may also aid in the development of policies and procedures [ ]. Dogs that pass the test have demonstrated to a certified evaluator that it can calmly accept a friendly stranger, walk on a loose leash, and remain calm when separated from its owner. The popularity of pet-friendly workplaces seems to hinge on expectations of positive benefits to employee morale and well-being.

However, until these expectations are confirmed through actual experience or empirical research studies, employers may consider implementing a system for regularly assessing the impact of their own policies. We suggest that companies use anonymous surveys, focus groups, interviews, direct observations, or other methods to help assess and monitor over time the impact of dogs in the workplace. These tools or methods could assess a broad range of important employee and organizational outcomes, such as employee attitudes, perceptions, and morale, employee performance and productivity, frequency, duration, and quality of interpersonal and social interactions, absenteeism, and turnover rates.

Furthermore, assessment of these outcomes can inform a continuous improvement process, which we suggest to address any concerns that arise and to promote or maximize the overall effectiveness of the program at both employee and organizational levels. Resources include the U.

The safety and security of employees is always a high priority, thus it is important to establish policies and procedures to address employee health and safety concerns associated with dogs in the workplace. These policies and procedures could identify and describe the potential hazards and risks, specify appropriate safety control measures, and identify whether any special skills or employee training is required.

At a minimum, we would suggest specific procedures to help prevent or reduce incidence of slips, trips, and falls in areas where dogs are permitted, reduce the risks of zoonotic disease transmission e. For example, employers can use the Hazard Identification Training Tool to help them learn the core concepts of hazard identification. Training materials for dog owners could be developed to ensure that they are educated on their responsibilities in maintaining a safe and healthy work environment. Because the adoption of dog-friendly policies can pose several questions and concerns about legal liabilities, it is important to understand the federal, state, and local laws regarding the presences of dogs in public spaces in addition to the accommodation of service animals for individuals with disabilities.

Important considerations include ensuring that all parties carry appropriate liability insurance policies and ensuring that dog owners have complied with all state- or municipality-mandated taxes, vaccinations, and identification for their dogs before granting them access to the workplace. Awareness of applicable leash and identification laws in the state or municipality are also critical, and employees would benefit from receiving clear guidelines for handling the dog when they are coming in and out of work and when taking their dogs outside for breaks.

To ensure that practices related to considering requests for accommodation of a service dog are compliant with relevant laws, we suggest that employers seek legal counsel or contact the Job Accommodation Network, a federally-funded resource that offers free guidance to employers [ ]. Although there may be benefits to allowing dogs in the workplace, many questions still remain about the short- and long-term effects of dogs in work settings. Efforts to bridge the knowledge gaps in these areas will help employers and human resource personnel make informed decisions about the potential benefits and challenges of accommodating dogs in the workplace.

The issue is complex and requires the efforts of multiple professional and scientific disciplines. A list of knowledge gaps and suggested research topics for each discipline appears in Table 2. Because the presence of a dog in the workplace is likely to impact organizational policies, business functions, and interpersonal dynamics, human resource management personnel will be central to decision and policy making.

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Perhaps the greatest need is for tools that are designed to assess the impact of dogs in the workplace on employees or business operations. Currently, there are few, if any, tools or methods specifically designed to assess the impact of dogs on organizational operations and productivity, employee attitudes and perceptions, or employee social interactions. Another fruitful topic for research is to review and analyze the experiences of organizations that allow dogs in the workplace. A better accounting of these experiences across many different sizes and types of business can help employers and human resource personnel benchmark successful organizational policies, procedures, and practices.

Knowledge gaps and suggested research topics related to the accommodation of dogs in the workplace. The addition of dogs to a work setting can also create concerns related to occupational health and safety, such as potential disease transmission from animals to humans and the introduction of new workplace hazards and risks e. Because little information is available on the incidence or prevalence of zoonotic disease transmission in workplaces with pet-friendly policies, researchers should conduct targeted surveillance and epidemiological research studies on the safety and health impact of dogs in the workplace.

Also needed are evaluations of existing company practices and policies regarding prophylactic measures implemented by employers to prevent zoonoses, such as regular flea and tick treatments, veterinary evaluation of stool samples for parasites, regular vaccinations, and other such protocols. Research is also needed to document the incidence and prevalence of injury-related hazards and risks associated with dogs in the workplace. Surveillance and epidemiology studies can help to reveal the nature and extent of any adverse safety and health consequences and evaluate the effectiveness of various engineering or administrative controls for reducing the hazards and risks associated with dogs in the workplace.

Seeking a better understanding of the human—animal bond and the many purported psychosocial and organizational benefits of dogs or other pets in the workplace offers other fruitful areas for research. There have been a large number of studies conducted on the effects of dogs on the mental health of children [ ], older adults [ 89 ], and patients in psychiatric care settings [ 19 ], but there has been comparatively less research conducted on the effects of dogs on adult well-being in the workplace. Another research question concerns the long-term maintenance of any positive effects of dogs in the workplace.

Longitudinal studies, in which impact is assessed over time, would help to address this question. A final research question concerns the impact of dog-friendly corporate policies on public perceptions. The reporting of pet-friendly corporate policies of companies in the popular press [ ] has perhaps contributed to positive public reactions, but more research is needed to compare similar businesses with and without dog-friendly policies to better understand whether these policies support a competitive advantage, not only in relation to consumer preferences but also by attracting and retaining the most qualified employees.

Indeed, the benefits of dog-friendly work places may manifest as lower rates of absenteeism and higher worker morale and productivity. Although several knowledge gaps exist concerning specific benefits, concerns, and challenges associated with accommodating dogs in the workplace, employers and human resource personnel can attempt to weigh the potential benefits of welcoming dogs in the workplace with the related health, safety, psychosocial, and animal welfare concerns using available resources.

The decision to accept dogs or other animals into a work setting is complex and ought to be made with careful consideration of all relevant factors. The authors would like to thank Penelope Baughman and Linda Batiste for comments on earlier versions of the paper. Foreman and Oliver Wirth conducted the background literature searches, evaluated the research evidence, and drafted most of the content.

Glenn contributed much of the content pertaining to the sections on legal accommodations, employee welfare, and human resource management. All authors contributed equally to the recommendations and final editing. The authors declare no conflict of interest. The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Published online May 8. Glenn , 2 B. Jean Meade , 3 and Oliver Wirth 1. Jo Williams, Academic Editor. Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Received Mar 24; Accepted May 1. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY license http: This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

Abstract Pet dogs, therapy dogs, and service dogs can be seen in workplaces with increasing frequency. Types of Dogs in the Workplace Dogs may be present in contemporary work settings for various reasons, but it is most common perhaps to see a service dog accompany an employee with a disability. Accommodating Dogs in the Workplace When considering the prospect of dogs in the workplace, it is important to know in which situations dogs are discretionary and in which situations dogs are a legal accommodation.

Social Support and Stress Reduction One potential benefit of dogs in the workplace is that they provide an additional source of social support for the employee. Task Performance Besides evidence of stress reduction in the presence of dogs, some studies also reported performance-related changes. Social Interactions Another potential benefit of dogs in the workplace is that they may have a positive effect on the social interactions among employees.

Limitations of Research Evidence Although there has been a great number of research studies conducted in the area of human—animal interactions, there are important caveats to the conclusions that can be drawn from the results. Health, Safety, and Well-Being Issues Whereas dogs may provide many benefits to people in the workplace, their presence may also pose several hazards and risks. Zoonoses The potential transmission of zoonoses is another health concern in the workplace. Slip, Trip and Fall Hazard Potential hazards of pets in the workplace also include environmental safety hazards.

Dog Bites One of the most serious risks of permitting dogs in the workplace—and one of the most serious concerns for the employer—is bites to employees or customers. Fear and Phobias Some employees may be uncomfortable with a dog in the workplace because they are afraid of them. Cultural Sensitivities In addition to dog fears and phobias, it is important for employers to consider the perceptions and attitudes of employees regarding dogs in the workplace.

Welfare Concerns Dogs may provide various benefits to employees in a workplace, but the care and welfare concerns of the animal is an important consideration [ 53 ]. Considerations for Human Resource Management Personnel Until the knowledge gaps are filled by more empirical research and reports of successes and failures, human resource personnel can carefully consider the wide range of issues that are associated with the decision to accept dogs in the workplace.

Table 1 Considerations and suggested resources for additional guidance for accommodating dogs in the workplace. Topic Area Considerations Resources Diversity Establish formal or informal procedures for periodically assessing employee attitudes, beliefs and preferences concerning dogs in the workplace. Develop policies and procedures for accommodating employees with special concerns e. Develop policies and procedures for the treatment and care of dogs while in the workplace; explicate the responsibilities of the dog owner and the employer. Establish a continuous improvement process to address concerns and maximize the effectiveness of the dog program.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health [ ] Safety and Security Develop policies and procedures to help prevent or reduce the incidence of slips, trips and falls in dog areas. Develop training materials to ensure that dog owners are educated on their responsibilities in maintaining a safe and healthy work environment. Occupational Safety and Health Administration [ ] Legal Considerations Understand the federal, state, and local laws regarding accommodating individuals with disabilities and their service dogs.

Understand the state and local laws regarding identification, vaccination, and leashing for pet dogs. Establish clear eligibility criteria for both dogs and their employee owners. Seek legal counsel to review all policies and procedures concerning the accommodation of dogs in the workplace. Open in a separate window. Knowledge Gaps and Future Research Directions Although there may be benefits to allowing dogs in the workplace, many questions still remain about the short- and long-term effects of dogs in work settings. Table 2 Knowledge gaps and suggested research topics related to the accommodation of dogs in the workplace.

Assess what policies and practices are being implemented in dog-friendly workplaces to accommodate employees with dog fears or phobias. Assess what policies and practices are being implemented in workplaces that permit dogs but also have employees with pet dander allergies. Assess the impact of the presence of dogs in the workplace on employee relations. Occupational Health and Safety Conduct surveillance or epidemiological research studies to document the prevalence and severity of injuries and zoonotic diseases in workplace settings where pets are present.

Evaluate the effectiveness of safety and health precautions currently being implemented by workplaces that permit animals and identify and best practices. Develop tools or methods that can be used to assess the hazards, risks, and impact of dogs in the workplace. Identify and evaluate specific engineering or administrative controls that reduce the hazards and risks associated with dogs in the workplace. Evaluate the effectiveness of specific safety and health controls e. Behavioral and Social Science Investigate the impact of the presence of dogs in the workplace on employee morale, productivity, and well-being.

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