Tuckered Out Dog Walking employees and some canine companions (Photo courtesy Tuckered Out Dog Walking)
In late 2025, Angie Helms and her family visited Richmond Animal Care & Control in search of a dog to take home for the shelter’s weeklong Thanksgiving foster program. An employee of Tuckered Out Dog Walking first emerged with a 3-year-old female, then named Take the High Road, who had been at RACC for around five months.
The brindle-coated pit bull was stressed at the kennel and was known for her overly energetic nature when meeting people. But Helms and her family quickly realized that this dog was special, and within a few days, she was a “foster fail” they ended up adopting and naming Gidget.
“You couldn’t see her personality [at the shelter] — she’s a couch hippo, she’s a love bug, she just wants to be bundled up,” Helms says.
Much of Gidget’s socialization at RACC came from walks with Tuckered Out employees, through a publicly sponsored outings program that takes shelter dogs around the city and, often, into forever homes.
Gidget today (Photo by Jay Paul)
Austin Tuck, a lifelong animal lover who saw the need for flexible, same-day dog care in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, founded Tuckered Out in late 2021. “Adoptions were kind of booming and a bunch of people had dogs, and then they had to go back to the office very suddenly and didn’t know what to do with them,” Tuck explains. “And so, a lot of our clients hire us, not even necessarily because they’re working in an office, but because they want their dog to be friendly and get socialized.”
The company provides walks, field trips and enrichment visits for clients in the city of Richmond and Henrico County, as well as the sponsored shelter outings. Members of the 10-person team of dog-walking employees undergo a week of training and practice visits using the Fear Free framework, which was established in the veterinary field and emphasizes dogs’ comfort and consent.
Tuck notes that, in five years of business, Tuckered Out has not had a single biting incident. “If the dog is showing any sort of fear signals about getting the harness on or something like that, we’re just not going to do it. ... If they have a backyard, maybe we’ll play in the backyard — just making sure we’re going at the dog’s pace,” she says.
Prioritizing the dogs’ comfort is a key tenet of the sponsored walks. Life at the shelter can be difficult, and the outings help the dogs manage that stress while learning behaviors to help them integrate happily into their future families. “There might be a dog who, here, is kind of stimulated going on walks and likes to grab his leash and be a little naughty,” RACC Outreach Coordinator Haley Childress says, “and when they get out on the outing, they might be perfectly calm and just happy because they’re not in such a stressful environment.”
The partnership between Tuckered Out and RACC takes cues from the now-shuttered dog training company Canine Adventures, which started a similar initiative with area shelters a decade ago. As the company was sunsetting in early 2024, Tuck reached out to the owner, Josh Rickey, for tips on how to keep the outings going, and Rickey put her in contact with RACC Shelter Supervisor Isabel Adkins.
Haley Childress of RACC and a resident friend (Photo by Jay Paul)
The sponsorship element was born from the generosity of a Tuckered Out client. After her dog died suddenly in February of that same year, the client didn’t want to receive a refund for her prepaid walks; Tuck suggested donating them in honor of her late pet, resulting in the inaugural sponsored walk a month later.
Supporters can select a one-off sponsorship or recurring monthly donation, both of which include a personalized update email, a social media shout-out and the option to dedicate the walk to a loved one. The funds support the cost of the outing, including training, safety, gear and transportation.
Dressed in a bright yellow harness emblazoned with “Adopt Me,” the sponsored shelter dog is brought on an hourlong outing by their walker to locations such as Bryan Park, Hollywood Cemetery or Byrd Park, or indoor hubs like Lowe’s when it’s too hot to be outside — with plenty of photos snapped, of course.
“With every single dog that we walk, we post on Instagram. And that’s a large part of the reason why they’re able to get adopted, because there are photos that are taken of the dog outside of the kennel,” Tuck says.
Childress explains that shelter employees keep detailed records of the dogs’ behavior using valuable feedback from Tuckered Out walkers, with many pups improving and overcoming challenges over time. “Typically, a dog that’s been here a while that’s pretty kennel stressed, if they’re safe for somebody else to walk them and take them for an adventure, we always choose those ones because they need it more,” she says.
The program has taken 268 unique dogs from RACC on 355 outings, with over 100 sponsors as of July 2026. Within 90 days of a sponsored walk, the adoption rate is 98%.
In February, Helms and her family took Gidget to RACC’s annual Muttminster/Meowminster Dog & Cat Show, and the outpouring of love for the pittie was palpable. “We had half a dozen people come up to us asking, ‘Is that Take the High Road?’” Helms recalls.
Almost a year after leaving the shelter, Gidget — like many other alumni of the sponsored outings program — still has plenty of fans delighted to see her thrive.
For information on how to sponsor an adoptable dog at Richmond Animal Care & Control, visit tuckeredoutrva.com/services/shelter-dog-sponsorships.
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