MBTA Police announce name for new K-9 recruit after asking Twitter for help

MBTA Transit Police introduced a Belgian malinois that recently joined the K-9 unit to Twitter and asked their followers to suggest a name for the pooch. They announced he’d be known as Hunter on Thursday.

Thanks to all who offered suggestions !! His name is HUNTER. #MBTA Honorable mention "Charlie" and "Trax" pic.twitter.com/h40mblWequ
— MBTA Transit Police (@MBTATransitPD) April 7, 2016

Some of the popular runner-up names included Charlie, Trax and Mr. T, police said via Twitter.

The more popular names submitted were HUNTER, CHARLIE, TRAX & MR.T#MBTA
— MBTA Transit Police (@MBTATransitPD) April 6, 2016

However, upon closer examination, over 30 users responding to the department's first tweet suggested the dog be named Mr. Spaghetti, nearly double the amount of those who suggested the name Hunter.

Why did the Internet want this dog to be named Mr. Spaghetti? More importantly, how could the MBTA Police pass up on a unique name like Mr. Spaghetti?

Update: Metro received an email from a reader that attempted to explain the origin of the Mr. Spaghetti phenomenon. The email contained a screenshot of a since deleted status from a public Facebook page.

Why did the Internet want to name this MBTA Police dog 'Mr. Spaghetti?'

Screenshot Facebook

Photo:

Upon further investigation, Metro found another post from the Facebook page that only further complicated the story.

Made this flyer. I'll be putting them up around Boston in the coming weeks. If you would like to help by printing it out...
Posted by Kimberly Strubell on Thursday, April 7, 2016

We're not entirely sure who the person is behind the profile, or why so many people joined the cause demanding the MBTA to name their dog Mr. Spaghetti. But we're open to more input.