How Goofy Pet Names Are Helping More Animals Find Homes

Picture this: You’re walking the halls of your local pet shelter, passing face after sweet, furry face. What feels like hundreds of dogs look back at you with the biggest eyes they can muster until one stands out to you. You make eye contact with the smallest, cutest puppy you’ve ever seen. After stopping in front of its cage, you look around to find its name tag, only to see that its name is… Gyat. 

That was the reality for many prospective pet parents at the Funds for Furry Friends shelter in Canada, both on-site and online. On July 14th, the shelter posted on Instagram about six new rescue puppies, named Ohio, Rizz, Cap, Skibidi, Gyat, and Sigma after popular Generation Alpha slang. For those of us (myself included) who get confused about the cutoffs for each generation, Gen Alpha is those born between 2010 and 2025. The post with these Generation Alpha names has since gained significant traction and earned almost half a million likes. A few weeks later, Funds for Furry Friends announced that one of the puppies, Ohio, had been adopted, in a post that has over 62,000 likes. 

These unusual animal names aren’t a new phenomenon. Shelter dogs and cats have previously gone viral for having silly names, a strategy that more and more shelters seem to be utilizing. At the very least, a cute kitten with a funny name might prompt someone to share it with a friend—and in some cases, like little Ohio’s, the joke might be enough to check out the shelter in person and maybe even adopt an animal. These two posts about the Gen Alpha puppies have the most engagement of all the posts on the @fundsforfriends’ Instagram page, so it’s clear that they’re onto something with the goofy names.  

Despite the success of the puppy posts, the internet presents some interesting opportunities and challenges for animal shelters. On one hand, having a large social media following can be an extra source of revenue for the shelter, as well as raise awareness about adoptable animals among the shelter’s followers. On the other hand, social media has a global audience, and it can be hard to weed out local patrons who want to adopt a pet from people halfway across the world who just think your animals are cute. The latter isn’t a bad thing, but it can occasionally distract from people who actually want to adopt a shelter animal. 

 

As the internet and social media continuously evolve, it’s fascinating to see how different facets of the pet world are represented online. Some shelters have hit their stride on social media, which can be a game-changer for their facilities and the pets that live there. It’s just as fascinating to see how pet brands interact directly with their consumers online and how social media can enable brands and shelters alike to communicate with their target customers with the click of a button. Social media has changed so much about how brands communicate with their consumers, and it’s important that we pay attention to the way our online spaces cause industries to evolve.  

As these precious puppies with terrible names have shown us, sometimes just being weird can really pay off. Social media strategy is such an enigma, but there is always room for creativity online, especially within the pet industry. At BSM Partners, we can help brands find the perfect balance between strategy and outside-the-box thinking. Our research-driven insights can help your brand resonate with the real pet parents you need to reach.  

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About the Author

Cady Wolf is an Analyst at BSM Partners. She graduated magna cum laude with a degree in English from Brigham Young University-Idaho, and she currently lives in Rexburg, Idaho with her husband, their two cats, and pet tortoise. She loves animals and learning about how to help pet brands and pet parents alike.