By Steven Ginsberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 16, 1997; Page H04

Gabrielle Gallegos figures the best way to win the rat race is to have a dog. The senior associate at Brett & Daugert LLP, a Bellingham, Wash., law firm with 25 employees and a strangely appropriate name, brings her 3-year-old Shih Tzu, Scoop, to work with her every day.

And it's not just a matter of convenience, she said. No Scoop means no Gallegos.

"I moved out here to have my independence and do things my way," said Gallegos, who worked for the District law firm of White & Case until 1993. "At this point, if they wouldn't let me have my dog, I would leave."

Is this taking puppy love to extremes? Perhaps, but in a job market where many employers in high-skill fields are struggling to hold on to their best workers, personal perks that are aimed at giving the job a warm and fuzzy feeling -- such as allowing pets to roam through the office -- are on the rise, and a smattering of companies across the country have implemented pet-care policies.

Pet care works much like child care. Recognizing that many pet owners feel as fervently about their four-legged friends as parents do about their children, a handful of companies are providing similar benefits. In some offices, workers are permitted to bring their pets along; in others, employers subsidize kennel costs.

But not everyone is happy when a co-worker brings a prize pup to work. "At first there were a lot of raised eyebrows," Gallegos said. "One attorney made the comment that the place was going to the dogs."

There are no laws that prevent workers from bringing pets to their offices, but most companies and government departments do not allow animals, other than those that assist disabled people, in the workplace, said Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an animal rights group based in Norfolk.

Dogs are the most common companion on the morning commute, but cats, birds, monkeys and even snakes have roamed, flown, swung and slithered around offices.

The impetus is the acknowledgment that traditional benefits don't address the needs of all employees, workplace observers say.

"To pet owners, pets are equally as important as a child or elder," said Tyler Phillips, president of the Partnership Group, a Bluebell, Pa., consulting firm that specializes in flexible work arrangements. "This is a sign of employers starting to think about issue equity.

"It's a way to test how nontraditional a company is," Phillips added. "Forward-thinking, contemporary employers realize that you have to create the right environment. These types of policies send the message that you respect the rights of people. In reality very few people ever use them, so they're highly visible and relatively inexpensive."

The Partnership Group allows pets in its office, and Phillips estimates that there are normally about three dogs at any given time, including his Dalmatian, Lombard. The company has had this open-dog-door policy since its inception in 1982 and there haven't been any significant problems, Phillips said.

But that doesn't mean that there can't be. Some obvious questions arise: What happens if work turns into a dog-eat-dog situation of the more traditional sort? Who cleans up when the pup runneth over? What if a dog bites the hand that feeds the company, and a client sues?

"You have to have rules," said PETA's Newkirk. "People are so litigation-happy. . . . It's great to lift morale, but the office has to be effective and functional."

PETA allows its employees to bring pets to work, but there have been problems from time to time. "There was one incident where a dog bit the UPS man," Newkirk recalled. "We were all nervous that he would sue, but luckily he was charming about it."

Nonetheless, Newkirk suggests some guidelines, the first of which is that each situation has to be looked at individually. If someone wants to bring a pet, she said, managers have to make sure it is compatible with all the workers -- and pets -- in that area.

There have to be places to walk dogs, and owners must clean up after their pets. Three strikes in the carpet-bombing arena and they're out.

Finally, Newkirk suggests putting would-be office companions through an application process with a trained professional to check them for possible hygiene and behavior problems.

None of this, however, constitutes legal immunity.

"There could be a lawsuit," Phillips said. "But for the people that do this there's an implied understanding [to not sue]. This is not going to work at a white-collar regimental law firm in Manhattan."

But pet-care policies do work elsewhere. Fairfax-based American Management Systems Inc. has implemented a broad policy of paying for a number of expenses, including pet care, that are tied to non-routine business. If, for instance, an employee is suddenly sent to Bangkok for a business meeting, AMS will foot the bill to take care of Whiskers until the owner returns.

"We recognize that a significant number of people have pets," said Mary Good, corporate manager of employee relations at AMS. But she estimates that only a few employees have taken advantage of the two-year-old policy.

"We're trying to meet the needs of a wide range of diverse employees. Individuals have all kinds of needs; for some it's elder care, some it's child care and some it's pet care," she said.