Amazon Opens Up Dog Park for Its 2,000 Office Pups Also opened to the public, the park features doggie fountains, rocks for them to climb on and a treat truck.
This story originally appeared on This Dog's Life
Study after study has shown that having a dog at work can greatly benefit employees. From lowering stress to encouraging collaboration and boosting creativity, its no wonder 20 percent of offices are dog-friendly. With all these positive perks, what about throwing the dog a bone or two? That is exactly what tech giant Amazon just did.
The huge online retailer just opened a dog park for its 2,000 office dogs at its Seattle headquarters. The 1,000-square-foot off-leash area features various rocks and platforms for dogs to climb and play on. There is also a doggie drinking fountain, a doggie treat truck, called The Seattle Barkery, and soon artificial turf. The spot is open to the public, too.
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"At Amazon, we are obsessed with innovating on behalf of our customers, and we think it is pretty special our dogs can be right by our sides as we do that," Amazon spokesperson John Sa told This Dog's Life. "To have a public dog park right outside one of our biggest office buildings is just awesome -- so many Amazon dogs, in addition to dogs all around Seattle will be able to enjoy it."
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Situated in the downtown area called Denny Triangle, the park is next to Amazon's Spheres, circular glass structures with exotic plants to help people relax (expected to open in 2018).
This is the second Amazon dog park, with the first one situated on the rooftop at the nearby Doppler building.
Besides the outdoor dog parks, Amazon has a number of other perks for office pups. At the reception desk there are always treats for our four-legged friends, some of the water fountains on campus are specifically designed for dogs and the company has a special page dedicated to them called "Meet the dogs of Amazon," which highlights some of the dogs at work.
The love for pups started with one of Amazon's first employees, a husband and wife team. They wanted to bring their corgi Rufus to work, and Amazon gave the green light. Employees used to lift up Rufus and use his paw to click on the computer mouse when creating the very first pages on the Amazon website. Today, there is an entire office building named after Rufus, and his picture is spread throughout the campus.
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"Having dogs in our offices is an amazing treat – they make employees smile, and we are proud this is such a uniquely Amazonian tradition – it's truly engrained in our company culture," added Sa.
