These two dogs, found roaming in Church Hill, were brought to RACC for safety. They were picked up by their owner the next day. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Social media has changed plenty of things in our society — some for the better, others for the worse — but at Richmond Animal Care and Control, it has saved lives. In 2013, when Christie Peters became director of the city’s open-admission shelter, 1,613 animals were euthanized, approximately 40 percent of the animals that came to the shelter that year.
In 2018, the number of euthanizations was down to 325, or 10 percent, with 90 percent of the animals adopted. In 2017, 91 percent of animals found homes. “Our goal is to hold at 90,” Peters says. “I think it’s going to be a great year.”
Two things changed in 2014, as Peters settled into her job: RACC started using Facebook more to share photos of dogs and cats available for adoption, and the shelter was opened to potential adopters on nights and weekends for the first time.
As the city’s only open-admission shelter, RACC was founded in 1902 to take in every animal that arrives on its doorstep or is rescued by authorities within city limits, including chickens, rats, goldfish and even the occasional horse or alligator. Some are sick, others have been abused, and still others are runaways that were looking for mates in different yards. About 3,000 animals come through the shelter each year, and for those who are adopted, RACC provides spaying and neutering, vaccinations, and microchips for a flat fee depending on the animal’s age and species.
Most animals stay with volunteer fosters or at the Chamberlayne Avenue shelter, with roomy kennels for larger dogs and blanket-laden cages for cats in public areas, or at outside facilities, like a horse who went to a farm near Ashland a few months ago. Some dogs are still deemed too dangerous to return to the community, but the vast majority of adoptable animals now have more opportunities to find homes than before. The animals visit local businesses as part of the shelter’s “Casual Fridays” program, and others spend time in high-foot-traffic Richmond neighborhoods and storefronts with volunteers.
“It’s a constant flow, like an emergency room,” Peters says of the shelter’s intake. Although the shelter receives funding from the city, it relies heavily on donations. The all-volunteer RACC Foundation raised $170,000 last year, money that goes toward emergency care bills and the salary of a behaviorist who assesses each dog that comes to the shelter.
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Christie Chipps Peters, RACC director, with Girly Girl, an older dog who needs a home (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Animal control officer Barbara Jones (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Volunteer Susan Shepherd cares for a 3-week-old kitten. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Social Media Success
Social media has undoubtedly played a major role in the shelter’s increased adoption rate. Peters runs the Facebook account, which went from 901 followers when she started in 2013 to nearly 80,000 this past spring. Other employees run the shelter’s Instagram and Twitter accounts. Aside from finding new homes and reuniting owners with lost pets, RACC’s online following also helps raise awareness and money for the shelter.
“They are like little detectives, keyboard warriors helping people find their pets,” Peters says, and the shelter’s daily posts featuring cute animals — and their rescue stories — are a popular feature on Facebook and Instagram.
Over the past few years, RACC has experienced “viral” animals, such as the bonded pups O.J. and Blue Dozer, who went through a failed adoption last year before finding a happy home. After blind dachshund O.J. was dropped off alone at a shelter in the Shenandoah Valley and identified through his microchip, RACC used its social following to reunite the dogs.
O.J. and Dozer received national press, but it was mild compared to Tommie, the pit bull whose tragic saga reached more than 3 million people on Facebook and led to new state legislation to increase penalties for animal abuse. Thousands of people followed the story online and in local news media after Tommie was found in Abner Clay Park in February, tied up and suffering from serious burns.
Donations flowed in, the shelter sold more than 8,000 Team Tommie T-shirts, and musicians donated their time for a Tommie fundraiser in March at The Broadberry. More than 2,000 visitors came on a single open-house day at the shelter, many bearing bags of food and other gifts. The increase in attention meant good things for the shelter’s budget, but Tommie’s suffering and ultimate death was nonetheless hard for the RACC staff, including veterans like Peters.
“Tommie was one of the worst ones I’ve ever seen,” she said. “I went to the emergency vet the morning he came in, and I had to swallow hard because I don’t like to cry around people. It was so tremendously sad.”
Although high-profile cases like Tommie and O.J. and Dozer create awareness, the shelter’s everyday work continues apace, with volunteers feeding the animals, cleaning up messes and taking dogs out for walks or to meet potential adopters.
Behavioral Assessments
But before animals get to that stage, behaviorist Mollie Norville spends time with each new dog to test how it will react to people and other dogs.
“I generally have a few days to a week to get the dog out of the kennel and on a leash,” Norville says. “I start by getting them to make friends with me.” Then she introduces the dog to other people working at the shelter, and after a few more days, many dogs “start to generalize and think, ‘Maybe I like all the people.’ We try to keep that opinion in their mind.”
At the shelter, the residential makeup is mostly adult dogs, many of which are part pit bull. Because a lot of dogs that come to the shelter have had either negative experiences or have suffered from neglect, the shelter may be the first place they have positive interactions with humans.
Norville, who received certification from the online Animal Behavior College, points out that some shelter dogs may jealously guard their food or toys, which can make them unsafe for children. “I ask two questions: a) Is a dog a danger to the human citizens of Richmond? And b) Is the dog a danger to the dog citizens of Richmond?”
Peters uses Norville’s assessments to decide whether a dog needs to be euthanized because it’s a danger to either people or other dogs — a responsibility both women take seriously.
Norville and Peters also work to make sure that animals find good homes the first time around, instead of being returned to the shelter. Some people don’t know what they’re getting into, Norville says, and she tries to talk to first-time adopters (especially those “with stars in their eyes”) about caring for a dog that has had tough times in its past.
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Robin Young, RACC volunteer and foster outreach coordinator with one-eyed cat, Eye Matey, who was recently adopted (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Mollie Norville, animal behaviorist, with Bubs (Photo by Jay Paul)
Secrets to Successful Pet Adoptions
The most successful adopters are informed, ask lots of questions and are honest about what they can or cannot handle in a pet, Norville says, and she’s happy to help if an adopter runs into trouble with house-training, food aggression or other issues. After all, she says, the dog’s behavior “highly depends on what the human does.”
Breeds can have traits like high energy or being protective toward their owners, but there aren’t overall “bad” breeds. Pit bulls and pit mixes, despite their reputation for powerful jaws and a history of being bred to fight, are “very confident, not fearful,” Norville says, when treated properly and exercised.
She also has two main recommendations for brand-new dog owners: Walk and exercise them a lot the first week they’re home, because it will help them release stress and tire out. And limit the amount of hugging, affection and treats you give the dog at first, because it will be such a stark change from their old environment and can actually cause more stress.
“This nervous dog, who’s probably been on a chain most of its life, doesn’t know how to handle it,” Norville says. “Give them boundaries. That helps them relax.”
