This episode tells a little bit about the backstory behind Motley Zoo's branding and why we name animals after musicians and more!
This week's icon features Adoptable Roadie, Honeycrisp!
Original music by Matt Setter and friend Sean!
Original content by Matt Setter and friend, Sean!
This episode tells a little bit about the backstory behind Motley Zoo's branding and why we name animals after musicians and more!
This week's icon features Adoptable Roadie, Honeycrisp!
Original music by Matt Setter and friend Sean!
Original content by Matt Setter and friend, Sean!
Hey, this is Pate.
jme:And I'm Jme.
Pate:We're with Motley Zoo and this is Rescue Shit. Boop.
jme:Well, we get a lot of laughs for our name, Motley Zoo Animal Rescue.
Pate:And a lot of misspellings.
jme:That's true. That is true. And I noticed that t he younger generation doesn't get the pun.
Pate:Yeah, the Motley Crew. Motley Zoo, the rock and roll theme.
jme:I think the effect is starting to wear off, but my initial thought about that was if there were a bunch of grants sitting on someone's desk and they had to figure out who to give money to, there could be a bunch of rescues called, Furry Four Paws and Little Angels and whatever it is, the combination of fur and four legs. And...
Pate:Not that there's anything wrong with those types of names.
jme:This is true.
Pate:But that's not our jam.
jme:This is true. When people would ask me, what would you call a rescue if you had one yourself? And I would say it, and people would start laughing. So I figured if all those grants are sitting on the desk and the person deciding picked up the Motley Zoo grant, they would laugh. It would be memorable, and we would get the grants.
Pate:And you also love Motley Crew.
jme:This is, this is true as well.
Pate:So double...
jme:Yeah. Yes. Of course I love Motley Zoo- Motley Crue!
Pate:I love'em both.
jme:And actually I heard one of the DJs on the radio say,"Up next, Motley Zoo" because at this point they're more familiar with us than they are Motley Crue. And I had just about died. It was very funny. I wish that I had recorded it. The name Motley Zoo is actually what brought you to Motley Zoo, right, Pate?
Pate:Yeah, that's true cuz I had just moved from Florida here to Washington and I was just trying to figure out what rescues were here, like who I wanted to work with. And at the time my landlord actually told me about a feral cat rescue and so I did a trio of crazy, crazy feral kittens and managed to socialize enough that they could go into a store and it was All the Best Pet Care.
jme:Our friends.
Pate:We love all the best pet care and it was the Mercer Island store and they had a display of all these business cards, of all these rescues. And so the Motley Zoo stuck out to me because of Okay, fine. You know, it was Bryan's graphic design and the name as well. So, and then I started following you on Facebook.
jme:And then when she applied to foster, I thought she lived so far away, she'll never get involved. And I was wrong.
Pate:Yeah. It was pit Bull Demodex puppies. That was a clincher for me even though I didn't get them.
jme:Yes.
Pate:Thanks, PAWS. no, I'm joking.
jme:The mangiest, just awful looking little puppies. And Pate was like,"Me, me. I want them". And I thought, this lady's either crazy or crazy.
Pate:I'm pretty crazy.
jme:They both turned out to be true.
Pate:Playing on that rock and roll theme that we do, Motley Zoo, Motley Crew. We actually call our adoptable animals roadies, and then what do we call'em when they're adopted?
jme:Rock stars.
Pate:That's right, because then they found their perfect home. So from now on, when we talk about our foster animals, as long as they're waiting for a forever home, they're our Roadies. And based on our naming technique, we get questioned a lot. We've actually gotten some hate mail because someone did not like Black Veil Brides, the cat didn't know the cat, sweetest cat ever, but that name was horrible. And we did get hate mail about that. She got adopted by the way./So, we started naming animals as we started to grow, just so that every animal in our care was unique. So years later someone would say,"Hey, I adopted Billy Idol". We know exactly who that was. And then it became naming them when we would meet the bands. So we would name an animal after a band member, the band's name, or the band songs. So Jme, tell us how we started meeting bands.
jme:Well, I'm gonna go a step back and I'm gonna tell you how the naming after musicians actually started. We had these cats named Tigger and Poo, these adorable kittens, and they were sweet, but no one was adopting them. And we could not figure out why. And my husband, Bryan, who's also on the Board said,"Why don't we name them Axl and Slash"? And I thought, oh, I don't know. That might be a little too edgy, like too much. But he's like,"Well, just try it like there's nothing to lose". So we changed the name and within a few minutes we had like 10 applications for them. And so we realized this whole naming them after musicians thing really worked. So we started doing all of our animals like that. And then, one day I was anticipating going to see Rancid, which is one of my favorite punk bands. And we had named the Cats after the band members, some songs, cuz we got in like 10 cats that week.
Pate:Yeah, yeah.
jme:And the night before the show, I had a dream that I brought the cats to meet the band. And the band thought it was so great and they invited me backstage and we took pictures and that helped the cats get adopted. So when I woke up the next morning, I was laughing to myself about this dream and started telling my husband, and I'm still just laughing and laughing and all of a sudden I just stopped laughing and I looked at him and I'm like,"I'm gonna do that". And he's like,"Do what"? And I said,"I'm gonna bring the kittens to the concert. I'm gonna go to the back door, they're gonna let me in. It's gonna be just like my dream". And he looked at me like I was crazy. And he did the like spinning your finger next to your head. Like, okay, crazy. And I was like, it, it's gonna work. You'll see. So I made some brownies because I wanted to impress them with my cooking skills. No
Pate:They weren't special brownies.
jme:No, no. They were not special brownies and...
Pate:Not at that time.
jme:Turned out half of them were vegan too, so that wasn't very good.
Pate:Where was it at?
jme:I went to the Showbox Sodo and went to the backstage with the kittens and the bouncer there thought this was such a great idea. So cool and so fun, so he went to ask the manager of Rancid if they wanted to be meet us and meet the kittens, and the band said yes. So they took me backstage and I spent about 45 minutes with them, which is a lot of time when you're talking about rock stars. That is a lot of time. And we took pictures, they asked me about the rescue, and we talked quite a bit about cats and they were really fun and friendly, and I was so excited I practically floated out of there. And I called my husband and I said,"Guess what? I just did"? Rancid is his very favorite band. So they're one of my top 10, but they are his very favorite band. And I said,"I just spent the last 45 minutes with your favorite band and took pictures and everything went just like my dream". And he couldn't believe it. Rancid put us on the guest list and they had two shows and we got to see'em both. And so Rancid had started it all.
Pate:Yeah.
jme:Because they were cool and they wanted to support rescue. And those names helped give those cats an identity.
Pate:And then we started just showing up just like the fans waiting for an autograph or whatever by the buses and sometimes it worked and sometimes we got blown off and...
jme:Most of the time it worked, and then quickly, our friends at the Stranger,
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:Wrote an article about us.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:About how we were saving kittens in the cutest way possible. And so all the venues then knew about who we were, and so when we would show up with puppies and kittens, they'd be like,"Oh, you're the animal people".
Pate:Or they wouldn't. They'd be like,"Oh, I know about you". And then we're like,"No, no, we're actually here to see the band. We talked to the tour manager", lying through our teeth. That was Jme lying through our teeth, by the way.
jme:Who, who was that for?
Pate:What?
jme:Who was that for?
Pate:When Motley Crew, when they were here at White River and they're like,"We know you, you are not allowed to come back". And we're like,"Dude, you don't know us". And he's like,"No, I've seen you before. I know what you're up to". And he would not let us back. But that's when Nita Straus came out. Yes. And that's where she fell in love with her puppy that she ended up adopting, Motley.
jme:Yes.
Pate:And then did, she went back with Motley, and then everyone's like,"Oh, what's that"? And the next thing you know, Tommy Lee is looking for us with our Motley Zoo, Highlander. And he came out on his little golf cart. So yeah, so that's how we met Tommy Lee.
jme:I don't remember lying.
Pate:You're like,"Oh, yeah, we talked to the tour manager. We we're here with the puppies and you know, like, look, we're Motley Zoo", and we had the Highlander and you pointed to it. Yeah. So we looked really official and they were like, no, we know you.
jme:That's funny because it is something I would do like when you act like you know what you're doing, then things work out better that way. So it doesn't surprise me that I did that. I just don't remember doing that. Yeah, it Well, and it worked.
Pate:So it, it, well, it worked and we got attention. And we got attention of the radio stations that we've been working on the festivals with like Pain in the Grass. And we've become, not bosum buddies, but you know, like, I mean, yeah.
jme:So that's, KISW, the Rock of Seattle. We have, especially bonded with them. Mm-hmm. and, you know, the morning and afternoon shows and Ryan and Taryn and
Pate:Miggs, like everyone there.
jme:Yes. So the Stranger finds out about us, then the radio stations find out about us. Mm-hmm. and yeah, somehow we did make it to Macklemore. I'm sorry.
Pate:We did
jme:Snoop. Yeah, Snoop Dogg and Slayer. And honestly, I don't even remember how they worked out... snoop Dogg. I remember waiting,
Pate:It was like 3:00 AM before you...
jme:It was three in the morning and I was ready to go and my husband's like,"Oh no". Normally he would be the one that would be like,"This isn't worth it. Let's not, let's just go home". Cuz he doesn't get starstruck, he doesn't care. But this time he was like,"No, we are waiting to meet Snoop". So it was three in the morning. It was like 95 degrees up in the attic at Showbox Sodo. And Snoop had his shirt off. And so the picture of me with the kitten and him, he's got his shirt off and I'm shocked how many people ask me why he doesn't have a shirt on. And I was like,"Well, it was really hot". I guess it's weird that he doesn't have a shirt, but that's not what I look at when I see the picture.
Pate:They were named Gin and Juice.
jme:That's right.
Pate:The two kittens. And he was actually enamored with the kittens and he thought it was so cool that one was named Gin and one was named Juice.
jme:Yes. And I was holding them and I asked him if he wanted to hold them and he said,"No, I just wanna look into their eyes". And so he was just staring at the kittens and looking into their eyes. And he did tell me that people don't realize he, he really does like cats.
Pate:Wait, isn't he Snoop Lion now?
jme:Not anymore. No. He went back to Snoop Dogg.
Pate:Okay. All right.
jme:It really was pretty amazing and to this day, that's still one of my very favorite meetings because it was,
Pate:He's a really nice. Really nice guy.
jme:Yeah. It was so random though. We were very lucky.
Pate:I mean, Snoop Dogg.
jme:Yeah. And then we got in to meet Slayer, which was again, another really amazing meeting and still one of my top, top ones...
Pate:Wonderful, wonderful guys. And, um, his wife.
jme:Yes.
Pate:Very, very, very, very nice. Yes, very rescue oriented.
jme:Yes. So Kerry King is in Slayer, and Ayesha is his wife. And they're very nice. They took to us very quickly and actually Kerry is known to be, I mean, knowing him now, he's pretty quiet and he doesn't usually, you know, say a lot to people, but he really liked what we were doing. We took some pictures and those are still some of my favorite pictures as well...
Pate:And we've seen them several times.
jme:Yes, many times. Since we named the animals after the bands when we're going to see them, and we've met some bands a few times, which band is the one that has the most animals named after them?
Pate:I would have to say that it's Shinedown actually. And you know what's funny? It's that Zach asked me that if they were still the band with the most animals named after them yeah. We've named quite a few animals after their songs.
jme:Yes. And why do we keep the theme, the music theme going? Like, why is that the easiest way for us to name the animals?
Pate:Well, it's started like with the cats, especially because tiny kittens, it's really hard to, to determine what gender they are at times it can be very confusing until they're like six weeks, eight weeks, and we don't want to name a male cat a female name because it gets confusing when people look on Petfinder and they're not really reading the bio and they think,"Oh, I love this cat's look, but I really need a female cat" and it's male with a female name. So that can get a little confusing. So we started doing the mothers as an artist, and then the kittens are named after the songs of that artist. For example, we had a huge cat kitten transport, and we actually named them after Lincoln Park and each group had songs from an album. So like a Mother was an album name instead of Lincoln Park, although there was a Lincoln Park cat, but then the other mothers started being album names.
jme:And this helps us later on when someone comes up to us and they're like,"Hey, I adopted Captain Fire" was.. I don't even remember. I don't even know what that's from. But the, the woman that adopted Captain Fire called me the other day. And when we name them with groups like that, it helps us remember them like when they came in together.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:Otherwise it would be if everyone was, you know, named something individual, we never know who was siblings. And we would run out of names and we would have how many? Probably 50 buddies and 5 million Chloes. I can't even tell you all the other names, but
Pate:A million Lunas.
jme:Yes, if we let the fosters name the animals, which unfortunately we don't, sorry about that. Then we would be overwhelmed with not being able to remember all of these animals.
Pate:Yeah.
jme:Well, when people ask me who names the animals, I, say,"Oh, Pate, our animal coordinator", and they said,"How did she come up with them"? And she actually has a notebook. She has a notebook that she writes down the names of groups of things. So bands and movies...
Pate:Movies.
jme:Movies,
Pate:TV series.
jme:Yep. And then when we get in, you know,"Oh my gosh, we have two boys and a girl. We can name'em"... and then she tells me what their names are.
Pate:Yeah.
jme:Well, and I remember we had the little baby bunnies that were so, so cute.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:And I just kept looking(Boba Tea) Yeah. I kept looking at mine and I was like, I wanna name it Tapioca.
Pate:Yes.
jme:And you were like,"What"? And I was like,"Let's do Asian foods" and so we had Boba Tea and what else?
Pate:And then there was Matcha, so we started naming them Japanese. Um, like Yaki Soba, Uhhuh and yeah. So it was our Japanese rabbits. Yes. although Bobba tea is not Japanese, that's from Taiwan.
jme:Well, I just said Asian.
Pate:Okay.
jme:You're being, you're getting really specific.
Pate:I did, I was starting to get specific cuz I was like, oh yeah, I'm looking up like some Japanese foods and stuff like that. Yeah. it's really important to know where we're at with each animal and to keep'em separate and individualized rather than just a number. So sometimes people will email saying,"Oh, I'm interested in this cat or dog" number, whatever, and I have to email back and say,"I have no idea what that number is, like, which animal are you actually talking about? And I need you to give me the name of the animal". I'm like, we go by names, not numbers here.
jme:Well, some shelters do go by numbers.
Pate:Yeah.
jme:And they might be able to look it up like that, but I wouldn't even know how to look up an animal by number. But
Pate:Not at all.
jme:Not everybody likes the names. Usually this is what catches people's attention is a cat named Snoop Dogg.
Pate:Gin and Juice stayed Gin and Juice and they were adopted by a Snoop Dogg fan.
jme:One of my favorites is Living Dead Girl and
Pate:Yeah, we had a Rob Zombie[litter].
jme:The adopter is a Rob Zombie fan and he was going to leave it that way...
Pate:Yeah.
jme:I don't know what he actually called her later on.
Pate:Yeah.
jme:There's a few that haven't worked or that...
Pate:No, like, the hate mail. There's someone who said they would have adopted from us, but our names were horrible. And who named your animals? Are they on drugs? Because you named a cat rooster; that's a bird, which is funny because the adopter of Rooster actually kept the name Rooster because they were specifically looking for a cat, and they wanted to name their cat after a bird. They were thinking of naming their cat Turkey. So when they saw a black cat named Rooster after an Alice in Chains song, by the way, they immediately applied and adopted- and his name is still Rooster.
jme:There are some names where I think it is a deterrent and sometimes we have to kind of think of something else, which we were talking about this earlier. Right now we have a dog named Ick...
Pate:Ick Ikagami from Real Genius. It's a movie cuz we do pop culture upon occasion.
jme:Celebrities, pop culture, music. I mean, we would run outta. Mm, if we just did music. Yeah. But so"Ick". And I was like, oh, we might have to change that. Or maybe we should change it to Ikagami.
Pate:Well, his name is Ick Ikagami, so maybe what I need to do is research and see what his, because they called him Ick in the movie because his last name's Ikagami. Right. And so I'd have to see if he had a first name.
jme:Well, and maybe his nickname could be the name of the actor that played it.
Pate:Oh, yeah.
jme:But yeah, there are times when it doesn't really work out very well but then we'll change the name. We've done that before.
Pate:Yeah.
jme:And sometimes we've named animals after bands that we didn't end up seeing or they didn't invite us or whatever.
Pate:Rude!
jme:We'll take them to another band and we'll let them name them.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:And so, so yeah, sometimes they get new names, but we try not to do that.
Pate:Yeah. No. Cuz it can be a little confusing to the animals when you switch names. Well, dogs. Cats, you know, cats are cats. They may know their name and just not come to you regardless. But, with the dogs sometimes if we're calling'em something then we find something similar.
jme:Yeah.
Pate:Where the sound is similar.
jme:Well, and this past Thanksgiving, I had three dogs that I took in that were in medical cases.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:The one was named Grace, which I didn't really dig and the other was named Cocoa.
Pate:Oh yeah, you kept cocoa.
jme:And so I was like, you know what? Cocoa sugar and nutmeg, that's my group I was just so brain dead at that point.
Pate:I know. I was like, what cocoa? Why not eggnog? Because you got the nutmeg and then what, what else goes in eggnog? Paprika, or wait.
jme:Ooh, that would be horrible.
Pate:Okay. I don't know.
jme:Uh, nutmeg. Yeah.
Pate:Yeah. Well, nutmeg definitely goes in, but cinnamon or something. Yeah. Well, there was sugar in it, so that was right.
jme:And when I went to the vet, the vet said,"Are you sure these are Motley Zoo dogs? This doesn't sound like those kind of names". Like how did you, he actually asked me how we got such boring names.
Pate:Yeah. It wasn't from me.
jme:No. And I said it was, it was me lacking imagination and just being worried about the animals in their health. So when we don't have weird. I think they worry more and wonder what the heck's happening.
Pate:Our dogs and cats do not stay with us forever as much as we would love them to. So when one of'em does pass, they become Legends. They're Rockstar Legends.
jme:Roadie to Rockstar to Legend- and then we retire that name.
Pate:Yeah.
jme:Like, like a team would retire Jersey. We retire that name. We'll never use that name again.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:Sometimes we will use names if we had a cat named Bob. Smith. I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't think.
Pate:And that is why I name them.
jme:The, there you go. I'm a creative person. I really am. I dunno why I have so much trouble with the names!
Pate:Bob Smith.
jme:Well, okay, so say we have a celebrity cat, we can name a dog after that. Same. As long as they're not the same species.
Pate:Right? Like Slash.
jme:Yes.
Pate:So we named the cat Slash and then we had a Husky puppy that was hit by a car. He had an amputation. Don't ask me why we named him Slash.
jme:I thought of it, but I don't know why.
Pate:Exactly. After the fact. We should have been like, oh, the Def Leppard drummer!
jme:Yes.
Pate:But anyway, so his name was Saul Slash Hudson.
jme:Well, one time somebody said,"How's Saul doing"? And you were like, who?
Pate:Yeah, someone, someone actually they inquired about Saul and I was like, what? What is this Saul dog? Who is Saul? Because he just, his name was Slash, dammit.
jme:And then she realized it was Slash right, because Slash's real name is Saul Hudson. How often do people ask us about a name, an animal that, you know, we don't have? It's some kind of name that's like, I know we would never have like, I don't know. I can't even think
Pate:Fluffy.
jme:Yeah. Or...
Pate:That happened I'm like, there's no Fluffy here.
jme:Yes. So they'll inquire through email and say, I wanna know about Fluffy. And we're like, oh, you are not looking at Motley Zoo's page. probably you're looking at Petfinder, which is a group of all different animal rescues and shelters. And so we have to explain that. but the same thing sometimes happens when people think we're another organization.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:And they say, I contacted you last week. And then they realize they didn't contact us last week because
Pate:No.
jme:Cause we respond to all the emails.
Pate:Yeah. And we don't have a animal named Fluffy.
jme:That's all the time we have right now. I am Jme.
Pate:I'm Pate.
jme:And this is Rescue Shit.
Pate:Rock on.
jme:Oh, Yeah, go ahead. I forgot our tagline.
Pate:Oh...
jme:Okay, so Rock on!
Pate:Rescue on.
jme:That was Rock On. Rescue On.
Pate:*laughing* Oh.