This Friday is 'Bring Your Dog to Work Day', a fun annual event which also raises much-needed funds for animal welfare charities.

Thanks to the race for 'lockdown puppies', thousands of dogs, many overbred, overpriced, and some sadly from irresponsible breeders, were dumped in shelters when the realities of responsible dog ownership hit home.

It's not just dogs: our keeper Matt used to work at a specialist rescue centre. An expert in exotics, to this day Matt shares his home with rescued snakes, geckos, tree frogs, an African pygmy hedgehog, and a bearded dragon. You can see why he was a natural for his job at the zoo!

Seriously, taking care of exotic animals is really difficult, requiring expertise to provide the right habitat, temperature, humidity, food and handling. They are not domesticated pets, and many lead unhappy, shortened lives. Much better to enjoy seeing them well-cared for in natural-mimicking habitats in accredited zoos and parks.

Domesticated from wolves, dogs have wagged their way into our hearts like no other animal (start your own dog versus cat debate!) Aside from those big brown eyes, they are such sociable animals, living together in groups and living in harmony with us, in our homes!

In the wild, living in large, permanent family groups has obvious advantages for seeing off predators, sharing resources, and for some, pack hunting. Examples include chimpanzees, lions, hyenas, elephants, dolphins and whales.

Prime examples in the zoo are our miniature monkeys, lemurs, and meerkats. Watch across the group for a few moments and you will see mutual grooming, playfighting, lookout duty, digging and food sharing, all reinforcing group hierarchies and mutually beneficial behaviours.

Sadly, keepers can't bring our dogs to work, for obvious reasons, although it's just as well (I wouldn't rate their chances against our snow leopards!).

Enjoy your own dogs, and consider a rescue dog for your next one, rather than supporting overbreeding and inbreeding.

And if you're longing for a dog but know, responsibly, now isn't the right time, then you will gain as much as you give by volunteering for walkies at your local rescue shelter.