Your furry co-worker may just be improving the morale of everyone in your office

If you've ever been in an office that allows dogs, it probably seems like a laid-back place. According to recent studies, your first impressions were actually well-founded. Recent research conducted at Virginia Commonwealth University has found that employee job satisfaction and morale is far higher in businesses that allow workers to take their dogs to the office, reports the New York Daily News.

The VCU study followed 550 employees at a service retail company in North Carolina that shifted back and forth between having dogs in the office and days without. When their stress levels were measured and stacked up against one another, the results were simply striking.

"The differences in perceived stress between days the dog was present and absent were significant," head researcher Randolph T. Baker, told the news source. "The employees as a whole had higher job satisfaction than industry norms."

NPR.com reports that employees may also be receiving additional exercise and spending time with the dog is a much-needed excuse to take a break from the grind. If a prospective employee is thinking of puppy adoption from a New York animal shelter or finding a dog-friendly business, it seems that science supports the decision.