The actress also shared that golden retriever Birdie “got a promotion” to therapy dog at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles

Jennifer GarnerJennifer Garner’s pets, including dog Birdie, have unexpected names.Jennifer Garner is having a laugh about her pets’ unusual names.In an interview for the We Rate Dogs YouTube channel released on Wednesday, the actress, 51, explained that her large menagerie of family pets includes a dog named Birdie, a cat named Moose, another dog named Kitty, and a puppy named Bugs.Asked by the channel’s founder, Matt Nelson, if the name choices are “intentionally confusing,” Garner laughed and replied, “Yes.”Eight-year-old golden retriever Birdie joined the Family Switch star at the interview at Los Angeles’ Wallis Annenberg PetSpace, and as he was led around on a leash to explore the canine-friendly surroundings, Garner shared the story of how he joined her family

“My eldest [child] was 2 and decided she needed her own dog. She talked about it all the time. And I said, ‘When you’re 10, that’s the age when one might get their own dog,’ ” she recalled, referring to daughter Violet, now 18.“And I thought she’d forget because she was just 2. But now, we have Birdie,” she continued, jokingly adding, “She did not forget.”Garner shares Violet, along with Seraphina, 15, and Samuel, 12, with ex-husband Ben Affleck.The Last Thing He Told Me star also shared Birdie’s exciting new achievement. The canine recently got “a promotion” to serve as a therapy dog at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.“So she’s excited. She wants to have her first time at Children’s Hospital L.A. before she turns 9,” Garner said. “She’s a very good dog, a very good girl.

Elsewhere in the interview, Garner got emotional remembering her late dog Martha Stewart, who she said still “has my heart” and was “the goodest good girl that ever lived.”She recalled how the white Labrador was given to her as a gift by the producers of 13 Going on 30 after the 2004 rom-com wrapped filming, and joked that she used the pup to “bribe” herself onto the real Martha Stewart’s cooking show.“I was a fan of Martha’s and she was not inviting me. And I wanted to cook with her, and she didn’t care. So anyway, it worked,” she explained.When Nelson suggested it’s “only fair” now that if Stewart, 82, gets a dog, she names it Jennifer Garner, the Alias actress jokingly responded: “I didn’t want to have to be the one to say it. But it is now on the record. Called out!”