Favourite office pet

By Nadia Dimattina

Every day is Take your Dog to Work Day for pet owner, Simon Bogli. Zella, a four-year-old Labrador retriever may not live in Southbank but is able to commute here every day with her owner.

Zella’s companion, Simon Bogli takes her to work where she gets a lot of attention from everyone in the office.

“She [comes] into the office everyday and everyone loves her. When I first applied for employment I said to them you get me, you get the dog,” he said.

Mr Bogli takes his dog for a walk each day so that she gets some space out of the office. He said Southbank was a great area for dogs like Zella to enjoy the outdoors.

“It’s excellent, it’s really well treed, there’s lots of space for the dogs to run around and it’s a really nice area to take the dogs if it’s a nice day like today,” he said.

Zella is unlike many dogs as she is a former breeding dog for Seeing Eye Dogs and a mother to 21 puppies. “She was in the top 3 per cent of all the dogs in the Seeing Eye Dogs Program.

Rather than assigning her with someone to help them see, she was breeding dogs for the program which get trained to be Seeing Eye dogs themselves,” Mr Bogli said. As a former breeding dog, Mr Bogli says Zella had some very unique qualities.

“Everyone loves her and she has a special relationship with everyone.

When you are not feeling well she is very conscious of that and can pick up the signs.

She will give you the equivalent of a dog hug and is an awesome dog,” he said.