Tonka entered the lobby exactly as you would if you were named after a toy truck. He bounded to one corner and then to the other, he reared on his hind legs in search of a pat on the head, he licked the lifelike German shepherd statue in the corner.
Mabelle, on the other hand, embodied her genteel Southern name, casting doe eyes at the folks around her and assuming a proper pose when the camera turned her way.
"These two," said Anne Arundel County spokesman Matt Diehl, "are not gonna have any trouble getting adopted."
Tonka, a young retriever mix, and Mabelle, a 5- to 7-year old retriever-collie mix, are the latest in a line of rescued dogs and cats whose futures have been brightened by Anne Arundel's Pet-of-the-Week program. Since the animals began appearing on the county's Web site and on its cable access Channel 98 last spring, about 90 percent have found homes.
In the first week the featured animals appeared on www.aa county.org, their photos received 235 Web hits. Now, almost 1,000 people a week visit the pet adoption section of the site.
Thus, Pig Pen, Bogy, Porterhouse, Moose and more than 50 others have found new homes over the past 10 months. Tonka, rescued from Fort Meade, and Mabelle, rescued from Gambrills, are awaiting their calls, along with a cat named Princess who is left over from the previous week.
County Executive Janet S. Owens suggested the enhanced Pet-of-the-Week program after a visit to the animal shelter in Millersville last year. Her mixed-breed dog, Karma, came from a shelter, and she said the sight of so many animals who might never find homes broke her heart.
"I would go up to the shelter and see all those beautiful animals," Owens said. "And it was just sad."
Owens had been pushing for the county to do more with its Web site, and it occurred to her that featuring a cute pet on the front page might be an easy way to do some good.
"It was one of those obvious things that, for whatever reason, nobody was doing," she said. "It turned out to be one of those wonderful little serendipitous things."
Other counties in the Baltimore area spotlight rescued animals on their Web sites and government channels but none as prominently as Anne Arundel, where photos of Owens and the pet of the week are the two leading visual elements on the county Web page.
