On my regular walk to work with Norbert my dog an old fellow came up to me and said "you shouldn't take dogs to work with you - it's cruel". When I got in I told my colleagues who were as flummoxed as I was. How can it be cruel to take your dog to work with you? In fact we all concluded that it would be far more cruel to leave him at home, bored and deprived of company.

I have been accused in the past of being rather eccentric in my attitude to having dogs in the office (we have had up to three in at a time). It is, I agree, unusal and some might say it is (at worst) unprofessional.

Obviously it is down to how you 'manage' this situation. I think it is important to say now that my dog doesn't rampage around the office - in fact you would hardly notice his presence (unless you were a courier!). We always check that visitors are comfortable with dogs and make other arrangements if they are. Norbert is very much part of our environment, one of the team, and in many ways an arbiter of the general mood levels of the office. If there are outbursts of frustration Norbert will be the one to jump to his feet looking worried which makes the person in question immdiately calm down and peace is restored! In fact when new people join us they see it as a very unique workplace as a result of the dog being there and then after a few months they feel as if it the most natural thing in the world.

All our clients love Norbert, the postman loves Norbert, people in the nearby offices love Norbert and I would go as far as to say he is the power-networker in our organisation because through him we have met many people we would not have normally engaged with. Finally he gives us as a group a little more personality. Peppercom is a firm with bags of personality and is actually named after the founder's dog Pepper so we think it is very appropriate that Norbert is well and truly part of our team.