Puppies = Awesome

I think I might be the luckiest postdoc (maybe person) on the planet - instead of sharing my office with another postdoc, I get an adorable puppy as my office mate. Meet Jake, our lab Lab:

Jake posing for the camera

Ok, so he's not really a puppy anymore, but he is quite possibly the sweetest dog ever and I can't stop calling him a puppy. Every afternoon at 3PM we have 'puppy cuddle time', which primarily consists of him lying on my feet and pawing at me until I rub his belly. And he's so damn cute that I can't possibly say no. I cave and rub his belly every single time. 

I think this puppy sharing my office might be the one thing keeping me sane during job application season. Between endless tweaking of cover letters, data analysis, preparing talks, and writing manuscripts, the days have gotten more than a little hectic. Usually by mid afternoon I'm feeling that to-do-list panic, the anxiety that comes when you realize you haven't accomplished half of the things you intended to and the work day is nearly over. Fortunately, that's about the same time Jake starts snoring and twitching in his sleep. Seriously, watch him twitch in his sleep and just try to feel stressed out:

My blood pressure just went down watching this again.

They take cute animals into hospitals and seniors homes to help reduce stress and lift people's spirits, I think we need to start doing this for academics too. Wouldn't grant writing be more fun if you got to take breaks to cuddle an adorable puppy? Yes, yes it would.