Remembering Joey, beloved companion and former Richmond SPCA mascot (Richmond SPCA Blog)

Recently, the world lost a great little dog and we lost one of our most beloved past mascots, Joey McAfee. Joey was a precious little Bichon Frise who was adopted by Eileen McAfee, a brave and committed animal welfare advocate and wonderful supporter of our organization. Eileen adopted Joey from Richmond Animal Care and Control in February of 2003. He first grabbed her heart because he was a smaller version of her beloved Sugar, a dog who had been a stray at the Santa Anita Race Track in California before he was so fortunate as to come into Eileen’s care. While Eileen may have first adopted Joey because he reminded her so much of Sugar, Joey soon became equally adored by Eileen on his own merits. He was calm and sweet and loved cuddling. He always looked like a little white bear and never even seemed to mind, maybe even enjoyed, being dressed up in funny outfits for the seasons. Joey had suffered trigeminal nerve damage to his eye after being hit by a car when he was stray and it gave him a cute little permanent wink.

In 2004, Eileen and her husband Don bought the mascot package at our Fur Ball so that Joey could demonstrate to our community what wonderful pets may be adopted at shelters and so he could use his sweet and winning ways to promote the use of identification tags and microchips for the safety of pets. He was a truly delightful mascot and we enjoyed the year with him so much. He was always calm and patient and treated every person and animal with love and gentleness. When we did media spots, Joey always behaved like the gentleman he was and won everyone’s heart.

Joey passed away last week of heart failure in Eileen’s arms. No dog could ever be luckier than to be Eileen’s pet. She not only showers love and the best of care on them but she makes sure that they help her to show other people how deeply rewarding it is to save animals’ lives. Eileen has done truly remarkable things to support the Richmond SPCA selflessly and generously and to protect animals with great courage and determination. She is a heroine to us. We were so proud for Joey to be our mascot and our hearts grieve with her for his loss.

Robin Robertson Starr is the chief executive officer of the Richmond SPCA. To read her biography or that of our other bloggers, please click here. Before posting a comment, please review our comment guidelines. Please note that our comment policy requires both your first and last name to be used as your screen name.