At one point in my career I had two job offers on the table - my wife was helping me decide, and when she saw that one of the companies had a dog on their site, she said I had to work for them. In the end, I did accept that job offer for my own reasons - but it's interesting how the emotional response is to the cuteness factor.
Coincidently I now work at a company with currently 4 dogs in the office.
"Coincidently I now work at a company with currently 4 dogs in the office"
Jesus, and I complain about how hard it is to concentrate in a noisy open plan office. A bunch of non-human animals roaming about might just tip me over the edge.
I was concerned about this at first - but overall it's really great. There have obviously been a few altercations between them, but those are rare. One of the dogs is owned by a member of my team so he sits right by me all day - occasionally he'll come by just to be pet, and when I am stuck on something work related we play fetch for a few minutes to clear my head. Our daily standups are pretty awesome too since we generally have a dog or two there with us, for example, yesterdays standup: http://i.imgur.com/3DABSti.jpg
At least where I worked, the dog just kept us company and wasn't obnoxious at all. It was very calming to just play with her when you're stuck somewhere, most of the time petting the dog yielded beautiful technical solutions. She should have been on the payroll (well, she did get snacks, but was worth way more than that IMHO).
It's interesting you mention that. I remember just a month ago, seeing pictures of dogs in the offices at Palantir (on their website), and wondered if seeing that became the deciding factor for prospective employees.
Coincidently I now work at a company with currently 4 dogs in the office.