By now, we all know about the current pandemic that is making the rounds around the globe. Despite all the bad news, we may hear about it, there is some silver lining in the grey cloud that is the coronavirus outbreak. And that good news comes in the form of the Instagram page, @DogsWorkingFromHome, which made its debut during the start of the outbreak and has steadily been gaining hundreds of submissions.
The page which has sparked much joy amongst people in self-isolation has been the brainchild of Mark Polchleb, a brand manager from Melbourne, who one day decided that the world deserved to see dogs working from home.
Polchleb explained to The Guardian, “I just took advantage of the fact that my dogs are at my feet. I thought ‘we all need a bit of happiness in our lives right now’.”
That is when he dedicated an Instagram account solely to the pets that make working from home that much more entertaining, and from there, @DogsWorkingFromHome was born.
“I think we’ve all experienced trying to type on the keyboard with the dog edging its head into your hands,” Polchleb said.
Of course, Polchleb is not new to the Instagram game, as he has been avidly Instagramming his pets for a while. Polchleb and his husband have two dachshunds of their own, Billie and Ollie, who have their own Instagram account with a few thousand followers already.
As Polchleb explained, “They’re used to this fame world and so now they’re creating a community of friends.”
After posting a callout on Billie and Ollie’s account, Polchleb received hundreds of submissions to the new account the very next day – just in time for the account to go live. The account itself has taken on quite a life, and has become more of a self-isolation distraction for Polchleb than Ollie and Billie.
He said, “It’s hard to balance [posting] and actually working, so my husband’s helping out now … so there’s a constant feed of happiness for everyone to enjoy.”
As Polchleb explained, so far, his favorite submission has been from a Singaporean woman named Hazel Yeoh, who has seven rescued dogs living under one roof.
Currently, the account has only one submission rule, “[The dogs] definitely need to be at home. Obviously we’re at a time where we’re encouraging people to stay at home and indoors. We’ve had people submitting dogs at cafes, which is a big ‘no-no’ from me. We want to see those doggos at home with their families where everyone should be staying for now.”
He added, “Apart from that, as long as they’re cute and can make us smile then we’ll take anything.”
So, if you’re working from home and have an Instagrammable pooch of your own, why not submit them?
