Working from home used to be considered a job perk and luxury, yet COVID-19 Pandemic has forced millions of pet owners around the world to experience it as a necessity. Many of us have no clue how to successfully work from home, let alone do it with pets who requires lots of attention from us. Jasmine Mayorga, General Manager at FIDUS Pet Concierge takes you through the 4 BEST tips to survive working from home with your cat and dog.

Transcript:

“Helpful tips for when you have to work from home with your dog. I don’t even know how many weeks we are into this quarantine at this point. It’s kind of different for everybody. But as it goes on a little bit longer and longer were realizing it’s a little bit hard to work from home not everybody’s used to it. I understand and it’s not only that it’s we have to work from home. You might have roommates that are working from home, your spouse, your kids, your dog your cat. There’s a lot going on and it can be really difficult. All to figure out how to stay focused and how to work with your pet at home. So I have done a ton of research. I’ve also talked to a couple different people that I’ve seen around asking for their tips and tricks and I’ve come up with FOUR simple ways for you to be able to actively and proactively get your work done at home. So let’s go ahead and go over what these four tips are. 1) Write out a schedule. This one seems pretty obvious, but honestly, it’s not something that everybody does and I highly recommend it. You should sit down the night before and write out your next day schedule and you want to include in there. What time you getting up? What time are you having breakfast? What time you’re feeding your dog? What time you’re taking your dog for a potty walk? What time you’re working? You want to include everything just as a normal day as if you were getting up and going into the office would be because that way you can keep in mind when you to get stuff done but something that you really want to Put on the schedule also is when your dog is going to have some doggy alone time. It’s just as important for them to have that alone time. Now as it was before when we were actively having regular life getting up and going to work. So you want to make sure that’s in your schedule. It’ll help you out tremendously. 2) You want to give them space by getting out. I know that we’re all in quarantine right now, and we shouldn’t be leaving but we’re still allowed to get up and we’re still allowed to go for a walk and you can go for a drive, just make sure that you’re taking all of the right precautions. Wear your gloves wear your mask. I have mine right over here. Every time I leave the store. I do have it on. So just get yourself nice and prepared and go for a walk or go for a drive without your pet and you can you want to keep this in your schedule. So, you know about how long it’s going to take and where you plan on going. This is really important for our health as well. We need to get up we need to get out and we need to get some fresh air too. So you want to schedule this into your day, Just as just as you would with any other activity. It’s also good to keep how long you’re gone kind of a random. So one day could be 10 15 minutes one day can be 30 minutes. Then you can just be gone for five minutes while you go and check the mail. We also have the check our mail, right but it’s good for your pet to see that you are getting up and you’re having a normal active life and that sometimes they need to go entertain themselves or they get that alone time that they need as well. This is going to be really helpful for you as we start to Actually go back into the office and having longer regular days gone, which is coming. 3) You want to create a puppy zone. Doesn’t matter the age of your pet. If you have a puppy you can have a senior whatever it is, but you want to create a little Zone a little area that is nice and comfortable for them and I highly recommend doing this in an area that you’re not working. So if you’re constantly working out of your living room then maybe their puppies zone can be in bedroom if you can set up something in the bathroom or you have an extra room or the hallway, but you want to have a space for them, that’s nice and comfortable. If you have a crate and your dog is Crate trained you can make it nice and fun put a really fun toy in there put a you know, some treats but you want it to be somewhere where they can go and relax and they’re not just with you. It’s important right now that while working we’re also giving our pets that space. I had mentioned quite a few times now and it really is so that way they’re not hovering or starting to get any sort of separation anxiety. They still need to have that separation. It’s important for them to understand that consistency is still there. Now my last tip 4) When you need to pull out the big guns, let’s say that you have a conference call. You’ve got a zoom meeting or you know, just a regular conference call. You need to get something done. You only have certain amount of time to do it and you don’t want your pets jumping all over you or inner interrupting you because It happens make sure that they go potty first. Make sure they have water and food first put them in their Puppy Zone and you want to give them an amazing over-the-top toy that they only get when you need them to be fully preoccupied somewhere else. Now one of the most popular ones are the easiest one to do fill up a Kong with something super yummy, like peanut butter or their food some treats. I’d recommend kind of doing a parfait where you put it in different layers so that way they get Through one layer and oh my God, there’s something else here and it keeps them preoccupied with that calling for a long period of time. Now if you want that Kong to last even longer and especially as it gets hotter out because of the end of the week. It’s going to be in the high 80s. Can you believe it? I highly recommend freezing the Kong first because that will make it last so much longer. It makes it a lot more fun. It starts to melt. It tastes really really good gets a little bit messy. So now they’re not only eating the Kong but they’re eating off of their hands or wherever it is that it’s that it’s kind of getting messy and it preoccupies them for a longer period of time if you guys saw last week, I also showed you some DIY dog toys a puzzle is really I have a baking pan that you make muffins out of and you can stuff it with different food or balls or treats and it can be upside down or right side up, but it keeps them preoccupied for a longer period of time because they have to figure out how to get the food out. So mazes are really fun. Now the important thing that I mentioned here was that they’re only getting these toys when you need them to relax by themselves and be fully preoccupied for a longer period of time as soon as you’re done with your meeting or whatever. Is that you needed to do you should take that toy and only have them playing with it when you need them preoccupied again, so those are four very helpful tips. I hope that helped somebody out there for how to work at home when your dog is home with you. If you guys have any tips that you personally do that. I didn’t mention please let me know. I love learning more. I love being able to give more advice to people as they are calling with questions or possibly coming in. Let me know what tips that you guys have as I mentioned earlier don’t forget to come back on Wednesday. I am going to be talking with one of our veterinarians. We’re going to do an Instagram live of a split screen like I did before and we’re going to be answering some of your most popular pet questions that you have for veterinarians. So if you have any more, please comment in here, let me know what questions you might have. You can send us a direct message as well. You’re always more than welcome to send us an email at [email protected]. So come back on Wednesday. If you want to meet our vet and go over some of these questions. On Friday, I have another really fun at home DIY dog toy that can be really good for today’s topic. Actually when it comes down to pulling out the big guns and eating those doggie puzzles that they only get one of them flew preoccupied. So we’re going to make some of those on Friday If you guys have any questions feel free to reach out to us. Again, my name is Jasmine. General manager here. at FIDUS thank you so much for tuning in. I look forward to these. I hope that you guys are too and I will see you on Wednesday at 1:00. Bye.”