Whether saving a dog from an overcrowded shelter or guiding a student through their academic journey to find success, Sarah Kucemba lives to help others.

Kucemba, an academic adviser in the College of Engineering, took her passion for service to the next level earlier this year when she co-founded Underdog Rescue Ranch, a nonprofit dedicated to finding dogs loving homes.

“I think I’m just, like, a helper by nature. I want to help in some capacity, and that’s also why I’m in my advising role,” Kucemba said.

A lifelong animal lover, Kucemba started volunteering with the Humane Society of Macomb in 2019 to “get (her) dog fix.” After she began her position as an adviser at U-M, she sought out volunteer opportunities with the Friends of Michigan Animal Rescue in Belleville.

While adopting her rescue dog, Tito, from Detroit Animal Care and Control in 2020, Kucemba said she saw the immense need for help to address extreme overcrowding. She began volunteering with Friends of Detroit Animal Care and Control, a nonprofit group that assists with adoptions and walks dogs at the Detroit shelter.

While there, Kucemba met fellow dog-lovers Chelsea Thayer, Heidi Diethelm and Taylor Hill. Seeing the overcrowding and desperate room for space as dogs continued to be euthanized, the women decided to step in and help.

They formed the Underdog Rescue Ranch, a nonprofit dedicated to finding shelter dogs their “furever” homes. The rescue finds dogs in shelters, and sometimes stray dogs from throughout Michigan, and assigns them to live with a volunteer foster. The dogs typically live with the fosters for an average of three to four weeks before being adopted.

While Kucemba and her rescue co-founders had experience working with rescue dogs, they found starting a nonprofit fraught with unexpected challenges.

From obtaining a 501(c)3 classification to setting up and managing the business bank accounts, Kucemba said, the four women navigated the logistics of establishing a nonprofit and successfully launched in February.

“We had a lot of experience volunteering and seeing how nonprofits run, but it was still a lot of learning as we go, trial and error, and it still is,” Kucemba said.

Since its launch, the Underdog Rescue Ranch has rescued 68 dogs and 48 have been adopted.

The Underdog Rescue Ranch runs fully through donations and the time and dedication of volunteer fosters. Donations help Kucemba’s team provide health care and support, including spays and neuters, heartworm medication and a variety of lifesaving measures.

Kucemba serves as Underdog Rescue Ranch’s social media and marketing coordinator. The rescue’s online presence has served as its primary means to obtain donations and find fosters for dogs that are running out of time at their shelter.

Kucemba creates regular posts to highlight the rescue’s mission, call for foster volunteers and request donations. The online platform is also helpful in cases of emergencies when they need funds to aid a dog in need of immediate medical attention.

“In the rescue world, you have to have a big social media presence, because that’s the quickest way to get information out,” Kucemba said.

While many people opt for buying puppies from specialized breeders, Kucemba said, rescues often have an abundance of puppies and recognizable dog breeds including German shepherds, labradors, chihuahuas and more. Adopting from rescues and shelters also helps lessen overcrowding that leads to euthanizing.

“It’s crazy, the insane amount of dogs that end up as strays and end up in the shelter. You can find some of the most amazing dogs straight out of shelters,” Kucemba said.

Although her time dedicated to the rescue often exceeds having another full-time position, Kucemba said, she finds her greatest joy when channeling her love for dogs into the rescue.

“I’m just so passionate about this it doesn’t even feel like work. Any spare second I get, I’m doing something with the rescue,” Kucemba said.

Looking to the future, Kucemba hopes the Underdog Rescue Ranch will grow with the help of donations and volunteer fosters to support a physical location. The rescue’s ultimate goal, Kucemba said, is to save as many dogs as possible and find them homes where they can be loved and cherished.

“I think just seeing the tangible results of a dog coming from a shelter environment where they’re super stressed, super afraid, super scared, and getting them into a foster home and seeing the transformation, is huge. So that, for me, is the driving motivation,” Kucemba said.

“The motivation is seeing how much difference and impact you’re making. You can actually see those results, and I think that is what drives me to keep doing this work.”

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