Underdog Animal Rescue and Rehab Press Release
Underdog Animal Rescue and Rehab is an animal rescue based in the heart of beautiful red rock country, Moab, Utah.
Our organization was founded in January 2017 by director Katy Gullette. Katy, who has 30+ years of animal welfare and rescue experience, saw the need for a rescue specifically based on helping a very underserved population, the Four Corners Native American Reservations. That’s where Underdog Animal Rescue and Rehab 501c(3) came to fruition.
Best Friends Animal Society, a partner of Underdog Rescue, reports numbers as high as 250,000 stray and at large animals on the Navajo Nation, which is the largest reservation in the area, about the size of West Virginia. Highly overlooked due to their remote nature, the reservations have quite the issue with loose dogs and lack the resources to combat the problem. The Navajo Nation has only four animal control shelters and five animal control officers for the entire area. One female dog, in six years, can create almost 67,000 dogs, as her young reach breeding age in only a few months after being born. As you can imagine, that is just not nearly enough resources for the amount of animals that need help.
The dogs Underdog Rescue primarily works with have been nuisance animals, owner surrenders or have been pulled from the animal control shelters while awaiting euthanasia. Many of the dogs come to us in rough shape, either from lack of food, water and vet care, or due to injuries from other animals, humans or most commonly, vehicles. Our rescue is lucky to have many contacts throughout the reservation that help us transport, trap and hold the dogs for us until they’re ready to come to Moab to live at our Rescue Ranch. Once located here, we provide them with veterinary care (spay/neuter services, vaccines, injury care), socialization or foster homes to get them to the final goal: adoption. Another huge aspect of our rescue is providing free and low-cost vaccines and spay/neuter vouchers to our contacts on the reservations, so families that want to keep their animals have access to the most basic veterinary care for their furry companions.
Underdog Rescue, as a non-profit, has a very small team working for us, and with that we rely heavily on the kindness of volunteers. Our volunteer program is really rewarding and makes so much difference in the lives of our animals. Volunteers have the opportunity to walk and play with our dogs, which gives them the skills they need to thrive in a home with their forever family. Watching a dog from the beginning when they’re terrified of humans and being put on a leash, to where they walk well while hiking and come when called really warms the heart and helps you to feel accomplished knowing that dog is now living their best life. Volunteers also help out with “dirty work” projects as well. We have a great need for folks to repair fences, cleanup the Rescue Ranch property, rake dog runs, scoop poop and provide general help with cleaning.
The other volunteer aspects of our program is becoming a foster family. Foster families provide a home for dogs that don’t thrive at the Rescue Ranch and require a little more attention than others. Fosters can agree to keep an animal for a certain amount of time, though many agree to keep the animal until they’re ready for adoption and placed in their forever home. Underdog Rescue provides the dog, food and veterinary care; the foster family just needs to provide a safe, warm and loving home for the animal to gain the skills they need to thrive.
Anyone who is interested in volunteering or becoming a foster family for Underdog Rescue can visit our website Underdogrescuemoab.org and fill out our online applications. You can visit our ranch by appointment seven days per week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.. Give us a call at (435) 260-8033 or send an email to Info@underdogrescuemoab.org. All of our adoptable dogs can be viewed online at Underdogrescuemoab.org or Petfinder.com.
