Faye the office greyhound has colleagues’ stress levels licked, and she never wags

Posted by David Reynolds | December 1st, 2016

Has a work colleague ever stuck their wet nose in your hand? Or eaten all the biscuits? Or spent most of the day asleep?

This is the story of Faye, a two-and-a-bit-year-old gangly greyhound who works nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday at her office in Glen Iris.

She has a cubicle (it’s a bed with her toys) and after a couple of run-ins with glass doors (it took her a little bit to get used to them), she now falls asleep regularly on the job in between walks and pats from her colleagues.

Faye arrived at engineering firm Verve Projects a month ago. She’s the fourth rescue dog Verve has hosted this year after the company signed-up to PetRescue’s national workplace foster care program.

“I wanted to introduce a corporate social responsibility program,” office manager Natalie King said.

“We put a number of different programs to the vote, and who wouldn’t want a dog in the office all day?

Faye is taken home every evening by engineer Richard Stokes, who is Faye’s foster carer until she finds a permanent home.

The firm’s third foster greyhound, Timmy, found his forever home in late October.

Greyhounds sleep upwards of 18 hours a day, so Faye spends much of her time at work asleep near Mr Stokes’ feet, but she’s also known to chase balls, steal paper from the printer and pilfer bins for bright food wrappers to glam up her bed.

Once, she ate all of the managing director’s tin of gingerbread biscuits.

Ms King said, overall, the greyhounds have had a big impact in driving down staff stress levels and connecting colleagues.

“It’s really just brought them open, opened them up a little bit more outside of their computers,” she said.

Faye and her brother Joe didn’t make the cut as racers and were surrendered by their trainer to Gumtree Greys, an organisation that rescues and re-homes greyhounds.

Gumtree Greys founder Tracy McLaren said greyhounds made ideal office companions.

“They are calm, restful, quiet, clean, shed little hair and can curl up in the smallest of spaces,” Ms McLaren said.

PetRescue program facilitator Tarsh Andrews said so far, they’ve placed dogs at the City of Stonnington offices (they have Kev the greyhound who has his own Outlook calender to book in walks) and Melbourne wine retailer Vinomofo (they had JD the Staffy before he was re-homed).

They can also match cats, rabbits and guinea pigs with offices.

“It just provides a great stress-busting happiness all around,” Ms Andrews said.

“And firstly, it’s saving a life, which is fantastic.”

For more information, email info@petrescue.org.au.

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