More than half of British dog owners believe they should be entitled to the same time-off rights as parents, a new study has found.
According to a survey by Burns Pet Nutrition, one in 10 of all would-be dog parents want to receive “pet leave,” a benefit similar to maternity or paternity leave that would provide special time off to care for their dog.
British law states that employees can take a “reasonable amount of time off to deal with an emergency,” such as caring for a sick child or grieving a death in the family.
But dog owners are now demanding the same rights to care for their four-legged friends, who 67 percent claim to consider their “children.”
Pet leave has increased in recent years, with companies around the world and across sectors, from tech companies to pet food bands and even beloved Glasgow craft beer maker BrewDog, adopting the policy.
More than half of dog owners in Britain believe they should be entitled to the same time-off rights as parents, according to a survey by Burns Pet Nutrition.
The pet food manufacturer surveyed more than 2,000 pet owners about the types of “parental rights” they believe they should have.
Fifty-six percent said they don’t think they should use their vacation pay to take their dog to the vet, while 40 percent of participants said they want time off to care for their sick pup at home.
More than half request care leave so that they have ‘sufficient time to grieve’ if their dog dies.
But the most shocking finding of the survey is that 15 percent of owners, or one in ten, believe they can take pet leave if their dog welcomes a litter of puppies.
Twelve percent of owners also believe they should be allowed to arrive late or leave work early to drop off or pick up their beloved dog at doggy daycare.
But while dog owners appear to be in favor of pet ownership programs, the general workforce may not approve of employers offering new dog or pet owners extra time off.
UK-based recruitment agency Reed more than 2,600 people were interviewed on LinkedIn last November and found that 58 percent were against pet leave. Twelve percent believe that employers should ‘maybe’ offer pension leave as a benefit.
British law states that employees can take a “reasonable amount of time off to deal with an emergency,” such as caring for a sick child or grieving a death in the family. But dog owners are now demanding the same rights to care for their four-legged friends
According to Burns Pet Nutrition research, millennials and Gen-Z dog owners seem to be the most passionate about pet parental rights, likely because they view their dogs as their children.
Eighty-two percent of owners ages 18 to 24 said they view their pets as their children, with 21 percent being exclusively pet parents.
Twenty percent of this age group believe that they should be given parental leave.
Similarly, 14 percent of owners between the ages of 25 and 34, and 17 percent between the ages of 35 and 44, believe they should be entitled to the benefit.
These beliefs stem from the fact that most owners feel like their pets are family members.
‘Dogs bring so much happiness and joy to a household, they really are part of the family’ Burns pet food Manager Laura Crotch Harvey told MailOnline.
‘So when a dog is sick it can be an incredibly worrying time for owners, and when the worst happens and that friendly face no longer exists, it can be truly devastating.
“That’s why we’re fielding calls from dog owners hoping for help when it comes to getting leave.”
The survey also found that 67 percent of pet owners consider their dogs their “children.”
Designated pet leave has been on the rise since about 2017, when several companies began announcing policies aimed at helping pet parents.
Scottish beer maker BrewDog was one of the first in the industry to offer employees with new dogs a week’s ‘Puppy Parental Leave’.
The benefit was made available to all crew members worldwide, with bosses citing at the time that ‘dogs have been at the heart of BrewDog’s way of life’ since its founding in 2007.
Several US companies made headlines in 2018 when the New York Times revealed that companies with good benefits were offering employees paid “adult leave” – despite the US remaining the only industrialized country without government-mandated paid maternity leave.