Today we’d like to introduce you to Katy Gullette
Hi Katy, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I was fortunate to have grown up living around the country and having a family that supported my love of animals from a very early age. I rescued my first dog when I was in high school, and there was no stopping me after that! Through college, I had dogs and rode horses competitively. At 22 I started my own business and over 18 years grew the business into 3 cities in Oregon. During that time, I also worked extensively as a political staffer and consultant, and built spec houses and ultimately quite a few houses I kept as rentals in Oregon, Utah, and New Mexico. During this time I also joined the first of several Animal Welfare Boards. After selling my first business, and entering my first retirement, I also finished 10 years on a Humane Society Board and agreed to work pro bono to revamp the Society’s thrift store. In 18 months, the store went from making $3000/month to support the organization, to making $30,000/month. I then accidentally bought a motel in Utah, and found it a great excuse to move to the Southwest. I operated, built, and bought more motels for 16 years. In 2017, I founded Underdog Animal Rescue and Rehab. My businesses supported Underdog for about 2 years so it was able to get up and running in a professional manner with staff, necessary supplies, and a property where we house our dogs. We are just entering year 8 of rescuing and rehabbing dogs from the Native American reservations of the Four Corners region. For the last 5 years, Underdog has also hosted monthly spay/neuter/vaccination/wellness clinics, bringing veterinary care and services to the highly underserved areas primarily on the Navajo Nation. Through this effort, we have cared for over 4000 animals that would not have had access to care. I currently work as the CEO of the organization as a full time volunteer and I couldn’t be more fulfilled.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
My road has been quite smooth. Maybe because I am a very optimistic person, but grounded in reality, I honestly don’t feel I have ever had to struggle for the success I have found in my career and life. The only struggle I can really identify, and it has only come to my attention since I sold my motels, is finding a work/life balance. Underdog has grown so fast, and the need is so great for our services, that it can be very consuming. And I allow it to consume me because I am so committed to the mission and the impact we have on a daily basis. My friends joke that I should get a job so I can work less!
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
In 2017 I founded a non-profit called Underdog Animal Rescue and Rehab with the goal of reducing the suffering of the reported 500,000 stray animals roaming the Navajo Nation. As we enter year 8, the organization has moved about 4000 dogs through our facility into forever homes. All of those adoptions go home spayed or neutered, up to date on all age appropriate vaccines, dewormed, treated for fleas and ticks, and microchipped. Additionally, we provided all necessary vet care for those animals, and performed another 3862 spay/neuter surgeries, 178 specialty surgeries, 11,676 core vaccines, and countless microchip implants, flea and tick treatments, and deworming on the Native American reservations.
We are the only Rescue in Utah working exclusively on the Native American reservations, and have built relationships with the communities we work with as well as the Tribal Government. Our services are by donation only and no one has ever been turned away for lack of funds. Over the years, we have become trusted and respected on the Navajo Nation, and field calls daily from people needing help with their animals. This is a quantum leap forward. When we started this work, many animals were dumped in remote areas, now people call us for assistance and if we can’t take their animals in immediately, we vaccinate, spay/neuter them and provide food until we have space to take them in. Many people end up keeping their animal after it has been spayed, because what they really didn’t want was more puppies and didn’t know about our services.
We have an exceptional staff, all of whom are truly committed to the mission, and work hard for every animal we care for, whether on the reservations, or at our facility. We also employ a full time behaviorist to work with the many dogs we get that are not well socialized due to their circumstances. She is also a tremendous resource for our fosters and adopters as they navigate training and helping a puppy or dog adapt to a completely new environment.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
The post COVID years have been challenging. During 2020 and into 2021, adoptions across the country rose exponentially with people working at home, and often feeling isolated. Getting a pet during that time made sense, and filled a void many people felt not being able to socialize freely. Unfortunately, as people went back to work, they surrendered the pets they had adopted during the previous years since they wouldn’t be home as much. For decades, pets have lived happy lives with their people at work every day, but somehow this was forgotten and shelters were flooded with now unwanted pets. This has resulted in the national euthanasia rate going up for the first time in decades, which is an incredibly sad turn of events. Our rescue has never euthanized for space, but the dramatic decline in adoptions (our adoptions went from almost 1000/year to less than 500/year), and, since other shelters are in the same bind, our annual transfer rate has also gone down. Clearly, those facts have a significant impact on the number of dogs we can take into our program since space and staff are limiting factors. To mitigate this shift, we have ramped up our efforts to spay/neuter and care for dogs and cats on the reservations thereby reducing the surrender rate. While that scenario definitely has promise, and has helped, the overpopulation problem on the reservations is so severe, that a multi-pronged approach has much more impact. Our hope for the coming years is that the pendulum will start to swing back as families with aging dogs start to adopt again and people without dogs begin to be open to that possibility again. While we wait for this to happen, we have bolstered our foster program and expanded our veterinary care program on the reservations. We hope to be able to start providing more services to people in our local Utah community who are struggling financially to care for their pets. To accomplish both of those things we are looking for a veterinarian to join our team full time.
Pricing:
- The cost of a spay/neuter surgery at our mobile clinics on the reservations is about $51. Our average contribution from the recipient of this surgery was about $39 in 2024.
- The average cost to care for a dog that comes into our program was $564 in 2024. By contrast, our adoption fees only cover a small part of that cost at $175 for adult dogs, and $295 for puppies
- with so many fewer adoptions to offset the cost of caring for each dog, our fundraising efforts have had to increase accordingly
Contact Info:
- Website: https://underdogrescuemoab.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/underdogrescuemoab/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/underdogrescuemoab/
