Name: Matthew Pachuilo

Position: Social and Multimedia Content Specialist

Matthew held many jobs over the years. He has worked on Game Day Video Production crews for at least seven local sports teams. He also worked for a TV station directing evening newscasts, and then later producing their live sporting events which ranged from high school sports to college football, and the occasional Team USA Field Hockey match. There was also a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award nomination somewhere during this period as well. Matthew was also a logistics coordinator arranging the delivery of cargo containers from US Ports to the customer’s warehouses and there was a brief stint where he worked for a big-box home improvement store.

Since August 2021, Matthew is the Social and Multimedia Content Specialist at the ARL and has fallen for more than one pet at the shelter.

At home, there is one dog, Indiana, a one-year-old boxer adopted from the ARL four days into his time working here, and three cats; LB who is nine years old, and two rescues from ARL, two-year-old Tobias, and seven-year-old Olive who was adopted this past January.

1. Tell us about some of the roles you take on to help our pets in the Communications Department. 

As the Social and Multimedia Content Specialist, my main responsibilities are to manage our social media platforms and create visual content, whether it be through video or still images to help our shelter animals find their furrever homes, as well as tell the story of our work at the ARL.  

2. How long have you been working in animal welfare? What made you want to work in this field? 

Working at the ARL is my first excursion into the Animal Welfare field, and that started this past August. As to why I chose this field, for the animals, which I know is a generic answer, but with my position, I am able to combine my love for both animals and video production to tell the stories of our animals, shelter, and community. 

3. Why is the Communications work important to help the animals in our community? 

There’s a multitude of reasons as to why the work is important, but for me, informing and educating the public is at the top of the list. Providing the public with educational content allows us to help animals outside our shelter walls. This can be as simple as creating videos that show the steps to building an outdoor cat shelter or documenting a day in the life of our staff to show what really happens behind the shelter walls. The information doesn’t just come from a video or graphic imagery, it can also be a social media post notifying of a called Code Red or Code Blue, or letting the public know about the services we can provide to them.

4. What is your favorite memory at ARL? 

There are quite a few memories I could choose from in my short time here, but I have to go with helping Chester, an overweight Miniature Pinscher write his blog The Chester Chronicles while he went through his weight loss journey.

5. What do you love most about your job, and what do you find to be the most challenging?  

Working with the animals can answer both questions, so please, hear me out. Every animal who comes through our door is one-of-a-kind and they each have their quirks which makes their stories so much more unique. Seeing the happy faces of these animals with their new families at adoption time never gets old. But to tell the story, it usually requires a picture or video of the animal, and animals are not actors. When you see the finished product, you see one picture of an animal looking at the camera, but behind the scenes, there are four people trying to get the animal’s attention and seven blurry pictures of the animal not looking. While they may not do exactly what you want them to on camera, knowing at the end of the day the minor frustration caused can result in them finding their forever home, it makes it all worth it.

6. If you could cross one thing off your bucket list right now, what would it be?  

Picture it, Sicily. 2022. A trip to Italy has always been a must. A tour of Europe would do as well, especially if it would include seeing a portion of a stage of Le Tour de France.

7. What is one thing you wish people knew about your job? 

It’s not just playing with puppies and kittens all day.

8. Any last words of wisdom? (Share a life motto, quote, movie line, experience… Whatever you feel called to share) 

“Don’t ever, for any reason, do anything, to anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what, no matter where, or who, or who you are with, or where you are going, or where you’ve been, ever, for any reason whatsoever.” – Michael Scott