Or other working, herding or sporting breeds with prior approval
Unemployment continues to rise (Heyo class of 2010!) That is, if you’re a person. If you’re a dog, the future’s looking flush.
The NYT reports that dogs, unlike interns, increase office productivity:
Mr. Honts found that those who had had a dog to slobber and pounce on them ranked their team-mates more highly on measures of trust, team cohesion and intimacy than those who had not.
NYT Freakonomics Blog, Aug 17, 2010
Yet while Freakonomists are calling for dog in every office and a chicken in every pot, the actual job description seems pretty basic: be a dog. You don’t even have to be THE BEST dog. Probably, it’s totally fine to be a second-rate psych major dog with half a semester of “volunteering” to help “the blind” under your belt collar.
The same cannot be said of the elite applicants making their way through the rigorous screening over at the Department of Homeland Security. Only the crème de la crème over there:
According to the Times, Homeland Security is soliciting small breeders for untrained (but “alert, outgoing, active, confident”) purebred dogs:
‘The department is looking for Labrador retrievers, golden retrievers, German shepherds, Dutch shepherds, Belgian Malinois “or other working, herding or sporting breeds with prior approval.’”
Tom Scocca for Slate, July 20, 2010
