Katelynn Medley

Special to the Free Press

It’s about 7:30 a.m. when Sam rolls up to the U.S.-Canadian border to cross into Detroit from Windsor, ready to start his workday at 8 a.m. at Strategic Staffing Solutions.

The security officer asks, “Where are you going?” Sam responds only with a pleading puppy-dog look as Karyn Shockley presents his papers.

Sam isn’t like the typical office dog. He works for an international corporation. There, Sam is not just leashed to one owner, but is shared among multiple employees. Orvella Bettis (recruiter), Sharima Bulchak (assistant to CEO), Karyn Mahler (a fulfillment manager) and Katha Shockley (senior recruiter) all share custody of Sam, and switch off taking him home and caring for him.

The four employees who share Sam work together to produce monthly schedules on with whom Sam will stay during a particular period of time. The time lengths vary depending on personal schedules in a rotation that's been working for three years now.

“As a company, we are very invested in animals. Particularly, we have a huge presence in Michigan’s Humane Society,” Bulchak said. “So we had already had the office cats which we adopted, and the finance team went to Cindy (Pasky, CEO of S3) and asked if we collectively took care of it, could we have a dog, and she said yes.”

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Sam is a poodle mix who is almost 10 years old. He is a high-energy dog in the office and runs to greet anyone who steps in the door. He shares office duties with three cats, CTO, Guinness and Green Bean. All four animals walk around the office freely. Toys are scattered everywhere, cubicles are filled with scratching posts and cat towers, and every desk has treats in the drawers.

“It’s definitely not boring (having Sam in the office). I think he really brings joy to the office. He brings a certain kind of energy,” Bulchak said.

According to animalsmart.org, pets reduce levels of anxiety and stress in humans, and Bulchak says she believes she has seen this happen in the office.

“When people show their love to animals, it shows they are able to love and adapt to anybody,” Bulchak said.

S3, with headquarters in Detroit, is an information technology staffing and management consulting firm.

Not only is Sam on a high salary at S3 — consisting of a lot of treats — he also has international papers. When he goes home with Mahler to Ontario, he carries his own backpack containing all the information he needs to cross.

“The border people know him,” Mahler said. “When he comes home with me they instantly know who he is. They think it’s a great idea.”

S3 takes pride in the fact that it supports animal welfare organizations. All three cats and Sam were adopted from Michigan’s Humane Society.

“We wanted to foster an older dog, because typically older dogs, nobody wants," Bulchak said. “And through that, we were able to find Sam. One of our core beliefs at S3 is that when you have the ability to change somebody’s life, you should. And that applies for animals too.”

“Sam is just part of the family, we are a tight-knit company — we are as well with our animals,” Bulchak said. “If we could, we would have a zoo.”