Richmond Animal Care ramps up outreach effort to find homes

Maggie Majors had attempted to volunteer with a local animal shelter for some time. Finding an opportunity at a shelter has been difficult since the COVID-19 pandemic, even for walking dogs.

Richmond Animal Care & Control finally gave Majors the chance to help out with their dog walking and photography program.

“I have been following Richmond Animal Care & Control since I moved here,” Majors said. “They got my attention because of all the fun names they give their dogs. I could tell they just really love the animals and the fact that they were looking for someone to walk dogs and take pictures of them, especially ones that have been in the shelter for so long, I thought that was amazing. When they posted it to Facebook, I jumped on it.”

Allowing volunteers to take the dogs for walks while taking pictures for the shelter was the idea of RACC’s Outreach Coordinator Robin Young.

“We’re always looking for creative ways to promote our animals here at RACC,” Young said. “I got the idea from an Instagram page that I followed, called Trails and Bears. It’s a page set in Canada and it’s a photographer that takes shelter dogs out to gorgeous scenery … I’m like ‘well, we can (do that here).’ Richmond has a beautiful backdrop. We have amazing parks, scenery, murals, all these different photo ops that are right here outside our door.”

Young started reaching out using RACC’s social media platforms in the fall of 2023 to get a feel for volunteers who may have some photography skills and would want to take a dog out for an adventure.

“Our staff does an amazing job of capturing our animals here in the shelter with photographs and videos,” Young said. “But I’m like, ‘Let’s take them outside of the shelter environment.’”

Majors has been taking dogs for walks since near the end of February, she said. In that time she estimates she’s walked and photographed nine different dogs.

At that time, Majors was still reeling from the loss of her own dog. Being able to spend time volunteering to walk and photograph dogs helped to get her through her loss.

“I woke up early one morning and saw the posts they had just posted,” Majors said. “So, I emailed my portfolio as soon as possible and I was like, ‘Please let me walk them. I have a dog-sized hole in my heart, and I really want to spend time with them.’”

Young said RACC has about 20 volunteer walkers/photographers who are able to take dogs out at their leisure.

To become a dog walker/photographer with RACC, those interested must fill out a volunteer application and submit a portfolio of images, either on a social media page or website.

“A lot of people have a website and Instagram page. That’s always great for us to check out before we assign an animal to you,” Young said. “But the first step is just reaching out and saying, ‘Hey, I’m interested in this and would love to get involved.’”

Volunteers are able to take the dogs for walks wherever they’d like. Majors occasionally brings them back to her home to play fetch in her yard for about an hour before returning them to the shelter.

“It’s nice to take them back to (the) shelter when they’re all tired, because if there’s someone standing outside waiting to go in, I’ll be like, ‘She’s up for adoption!’ and they’re in a calmer state. It’s just really nice,” Majors said.

Another advantage of taking the dogs out for extended periods of time is that the volunteers are able to give important feedback to RACC staff about how the dog was on the walk.

“We have adopters sometimes that might ask, ‘How do they ride in a car?’ and sometimes we have no idea because they’ve spent all their time here at the shelter,” Young said. “That helps that our volunteers can say, ‘Oh, they rode great in a car’ or ‘They did this’ or ‘They met new people and were fine.’”

Getting input and feedback from the volunteers really helps because that gives RACC staff more insight as to how the dogs will react in the world. In addition, the staff can work on any behavioral issues to help get an animal adopted.

If you are interested in helping to walk and photograph dogs for RACC, reach out to Robin Young at robin.young@rva.gov.