Google is officially a 'dog company'

Google has enshrined its status as a "dog company" in its code of conduct on its investor relations web site.

Earlier today at the World Economic Forum Davos, Welltower CEO Thomas DeRosa said that he thought companies should start setting up in-house care for employees' elderly parents. He said that he was inspired by Google's practice of having in-house caretakers for pets.

We reached out to Google, and nobody there had heard of the policy.

But somebody at the company did point us to a fascinating part of the code of conduct which we'd never seen before:

5. Dog Policy

"Google's affection for our canine friends is an integral facet of our corporate culture. We like cats, but we're a dog company, so as a general rule we feel cats visiting our offices would be fairly stressed out."

Googlers often bring their dogs to work, and it's OK if they camp out under their desks during work. We've even seen Google buses with a "Dog Friendly" sign on them. But apparently it's official company policy.