It’s Take Your Dog To Work Day! Meet Olive, Blippar’s office dog.

At 10 months old, Olive is Blippar’s youngest employee.

She is also the only one with four furry feet, a wagging tail, and a predilection for rooting around in the office bins.

Happily, Olive is not a feral, mutant toddler. Olive is a puppy. The Blippuppy, to be precise.

A member of the Blippar London family since February 2014, Olive has fast made herself an integral part of the team, whether by offering the marketing crew a soft head to scratch while they ponder a complex copy question; by putting a smile on the account managers’ collective face by chasing thrown tennis balls; by conducting the (unofficial) first-round interviews from the waiting room sofa, or by terrifying the blipp developers when they spot her gnawing the super-important wires in the server room while they’re halfway through building a blipp for Pepsi…

We like to think of her as our 'executive toy'. And she’s far prettier than those swinging metal balls.

But aesthetics and mischief-making aside, Olive and her canine cohorts have one very special purpose in the workplace: they have been scientifically proven to reduce stress levels among staff. Researchers have even found that they make a job more satisfying.

A study carried out by a team of researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University (and published in the International Journal of Workplace Health Management) found that access to dogs – whether your own or one belonging to a colleague - boosted morale and reduced stress levels.

Stress hormone levels were measured using saliva samples during the day, according to the BBC, and groups who spent time with a dog at work showed a marked decline in stress levels as the day progressed, while groups with no access to a dog showed a rise.

Research in the past has shown that stress can contribute to employee absenteeism, burnout and a loss of productivity.

So, today, on international Take Your Dog To Work Day, we would like to salute all the fluffy, shaggy, waggy, slobbery, doe-eyed office mutts out there, who make our day a little sunnier (if a little smellier, depending on who jumped in the duck pond that morning...). Thank you, pups. You’re doing a great job.

Happy Take Your Dog To Work Day!

DISCLAIMER: Olive was asked to comment on the findings, but declined. She was far too busy trying to bury her toy bone in the AstroTurf meeting room…

(Search #blippuppy on Instagram for more photos of Olive in the Blippar offices)