Efficient Web Working for the Pet Owner

I saw this article on one of my favorite blogs, Web Worker Daily, and thought I’d share it for those of you who work at home with pets.

Working from home allows me to be a more involved pet owner, since I get to be around my pets all day.  Right now, I have two dogs, two cats, and a rooster.  (I also have a snail but it hardly gets in the way of anything.)  But having pets around while you work leaves you open to several distractions throughout the day.  How can you find the middle ground of enjoying your pet’s company without letting them disturb your work?

Know your pet’s behavior. By understanding your pet’s behavior and what it means for you as a teleworker, you’ll be better equipped to make decisions that would benefit your pets without getting in the way of your work.  You’ll also know how they’ll react to different situations, and how much of a distraction they will be.

For example, I know that Toby, one of my cats, is very independent and doesn’t care what I do.  Because of this, I don’t mind that he’s around when I work.  However, my other cat, Sasha, is attention-hungry.  If she’s around, I know I’m not going to get any work done.  So if I know that I need to do a lot of work, I try to avoid encountering Sasha.

Train them. Before I got my dogs, I thought training them was just a way to be cute, since they can sit, stand, roll over, or play the xylophone at your beck and call.  This misconception didn’t make me take training seriously, until I realized that I needed my dogs to be more disciplined.

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