Kate Spayed, Garbonzo Bean and Larry the Cable Guy are just some of the eye-catching names intake staff and animal control officers give to the critters at Richmond Animal Care and Control.
Grapefruit Juice. Little Drummer Boy. Artisan Crisp. Up to My Neck in Homework. Are these random phrases generated by AI? No, they’re just a few of the unique names the staff at Richmond Animal Care and Control has given to the creatures in their care.
“We don’t like and don’t use very basic names,” Christie Chipps Peters, RACC’s director, says. “I don’t know when or how it started, but now it’s a necessity. By the time you’ve named 100,000 animals, you’ve really gotta stretch your brain a little bit. … The intake staff and [animal control] officers name them, and some of the names they come up with are so funny that I’ll literally laugh out loud.”
Peters has been with RACC since 2013, the first director appointed after the shelter, founded in 1902, became an independent department within the city of Richmond’s government. She leads a staff of 27, who take in 3,000 to 3,500 animals every year.
“We are an open-admission shelter, which means we can’t choose which animals come into our care, as far as strays and abandoned and neglected animals go,” Peters explains. “We take in every animal, regardless of its behavior or health, which means that then we have to make sometimes very hard decisions.” The private, nonprofit RACC Foundation subsidizes the shelter’s veterinary care, helping the staff “save as many lives as we possibly can,” Peters says, but not every injured animal can be saved; in addition, the shelter euthanizes aggressive animals for the sake of public safety.
“So, our jobs are sometimes very hard and very sad,” Peters continues. “We see the worst of the worst. And what we are talking about today, names and fun things, you know … it is a bright spot in our day. … When we’re in the doldrums of the horrible things that people do to animals, it’s really nice to have a fresh start for them and a name that makes you smile. … I think it is something that sets us apart, and I just love it. I love it so much.”
RACC director Christie Peters tries to personalize animals’ stories to encourage quicker adoptions. She described Udon Noodle as “a year old, squishy sweetheart who loves other dogs” and “hates it at RACC and is stressed.” Udon was recently adopted.
The silly names serve another purpose as well: They draw attention on social media. “Social media has literally changed the game for our organization on every level,” Peters says.
When she first joined RACC, the shelter had 901 “likes” on Facebook. A decade later, the organization boasts more than 103,000 likes and 121,000 followers. “We have used it as a platform primarily because it’s free,” Peters admits with a laugh, noting that she is “very careful about our pennies and how we spend them. We don’t ever spend money on marketing.”
Simply telling the shelter’s stories has turned out to be marketing enough. “Social media has allowed us to really peel back the curtain and allow people to see who we are, what we do and why we’re doing it,” she says, “and to sort of bring them along on the adventure and let them understand that … we are making incredibly hard decisions, trying to save every life we can. When you prove what you do and you ask for help, we have really been so truly blessed by such an amazing, resounding support.”
Some of the stories Peters tells on Facebook are heartrending — she mentions Tommie, the dog who died after being chained to a fence and set on fire in 2019 — but adds, “We just told the truth, and we posted it and let the chips fall where they may. And the good that has come out of each of those cases that we’ve shared has just, again, it’s changed the game. We’re able to save more lives because people watch us and care about us and donate to our nonprofit that allows us to then, in turn, save more lives.”
The same philosophy works on a smaller scale, too, Peters says. Last year she began posting the stories of specific animals rather than a generalized plea for adoptions and found that it made a difference. “We have found that the more that we can tailor a story to make people feel like they could adopt that animal, then we’re seeing them get scooped up a little bit quicker.”
The story of Patches the 42-pound cat made worldwide news last spring. Peters characterized a “bad cat” named Beverly as “crazy” but ideal for a barn or garage. Iced Sugar Cookie was said to need “a bulldog experienced home,” Tidie Whities “LOVES other dogs and everyone he meets,” and many others are described as “little cuties” or “too sweet to be in a shelter” or “needs snuggles.” They all found homes. RACC had an 84% save rate last year, placing 1,603 animals in new homes and returning 689 pets to their owners.
According to Peters, photo techniques such as holding or cuddling dogs seems to help them find homes faster. Pictured at left is One Frosty Too Many; below right is Tidie Whities.
In addition to the silly names and personalized stories, Peters has also fine-tuned the photos she shares. “We have found that the outside pictures with the dog on the steps, with a person hugging [it], it gets more response than just a picture of a dog in the cage,” she says. A crate full of puppies is cute; armloads of puppies held by smiling staff members have found homes in less than a day.
Peters says posting and responding to comments and inquiries takes hours every day, “and that’s seven days a week, ’cause I do it every day.” But, she concludes, “It makes me feel happy. I like to share our stories. I like to bring what we are doing to the forefront and tell who we are and what we’re doing … the lives that we work really hard to save and love and find them forever homes.”
How to Help
In addition to adopting animals (and reclaiming stray pets), residents can help RACC and the city’s animal population in several ways:
- Volunteer: Sign up to socialize cats and walk dogs.
- Virtual foster: Share photos and social media posts of specific pets to your network to help them get adopted (RACC on Facebook | RACC on Instagram).
- Foster: Newborn kittens and puppies, as well as animals recovering from surgery, need at-home care.
- Donations: The RACC Foundation provides lifesaving immediate veterinary care for animals in need.
- Team Tommie license plate: A portion of proceeds from sales of the plate benefits the RACC Foundation.
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