Gimme Shelter Animal Rescue Director Talks Prioritizing Foster Care

Standing among giants of the East End animal rescue scene, Gimme Shelter Animal Rescue always has its work cut out for it – but they are more than up to the task.

Since founding Gimme Shelter Animal Rescue in 2011, Michelle Neufeld Montak has dedicated her life to saving dogs from high-kill shelters and neglectful situations across the country. With over 2,000 successful rescues to date, her mission is to ensure every animal gets the care, love, and second chance they deserve.

Dan’s Papers talked to Montak, the founder and director, about Gimme Shelter’s history, mission, and future outlook.

A Conversation with Gimme Shelter Founder Michelle Neufeld Montak

How did you come to found Gimme Shelter?

I’m Canadian, and I moved here to marry my husband, and I had to wait to get my working papers, and I started volunteering with a little rescue, you know, on the island. And then I ended up starting my own rescue in 2011 when I found out how many dogs are just dying in shelters all across the country. I love animals more than people for the most part. So I just really wanted to do something to help the voiceless. So far, it’s worked out. Because we don’t have a facility, and I really wanted to get started saving dogs immediately, and I didn’t want to wait for that,  I just jumped in and started putting the word out and networking, and found people that started taking in the dogs and started fostering for us, and it grew from there. I believe in giving back in this life and love animals more than people. I’ve always felt particularly drawn to dogs. They are magical soulful creatures who don’t have a voice and rely on humans to care for them. A responsibility I take very seriously.

With a foster network, you must be a source of alleviation for some of the shelters that have facilities with limited space.

We try. We’ve pulled dogs from the ACC in Manhattan and Brooklyn. We do take in dogs locally, or dogs from really just any bad situations that are found – like on the side of the road, or people have the, you know, the mother, the mother dog and the puppies need rescue, we also rescued from a very poor, rural county in South Carolina where the dogs are just roaming free. They’re not a priority, and they’re not spayed or neutered. So they’re constantly procreating, and the shelters there are packed, especially post-COVID. So people are just dumping their dogs, like on the road or on the highway, or calling us down there because they know our rescue partner down there. They know what we do, and they know we take in dogs, so we’re constantly getting calls from everywhere to help. It’s just a really sad time for animals. Whoever we can take in, we do.

What trends have you noticed in the aftermath of the pandemic puppy boom?

Everybody wanted to adopt during COVID. We were getting, without exaggeration, over 100 applications every single day for every single dog that we had. It was just crazy, and we were trying to be super careful about who we adopted to, in the sense of people having jobs that we knew they would go back to post-COVID, we definitely took that into consideration. But a lot of shelters on the island and the city have been slammed with people returning dogs after going back to their lives, their work, and travel. It’s unfortunately a selfish decision to get a dog when they were home and then try to give them up now, so it’s created a real backlog at all of the shelters, and for us rescues as well. It’s a really hard time for all of us.

Another issue is that New York State has tightened up the laws with regard to puppy stores and backyard breeding and whatnot. Do you rescue any dogs that either come from puppy stores or puppy mills?

Not really. We mainly rescue from kill shelters, where the dogs will die if they’re not rescued. Dogs of all kinds of ages like puppies and really wonderful younger dogs, just because of over capacity situations. We also just take a lot of dogs, like I said, from bad situations. We did take a few dogs that came from puppy mills, but not directly. I don’t know what it was, but it was more people that bought the dogs from puppy mills, again, during COVID, like dogs like doodles, that they really didn’t understand what they were getting. And so we’ve actually had so many situations like that, too, where people are referred to us to take in their doodles and their poodles, all these designer dogs that came from breeders or puppy mills, and people just don’t research the breed or have the lifestyle to support giving them exercise and care that they need.

True or false: East End animal rescues see a huge influx of pets after Labor Day from people leaving the Hamptons to go wherever they live in the offseason.

I heard that used to happen years ago, like ARF Hamptons supposedly had all these dogs from people that were seasonal, which is so horrifying. Personally, I live in Sagaponack myself year round. I don’t really see that happening. I don’t hear about that, and we don’t get dogs back like that. So I’m not sure that’s much of a thing anymore.

Naturally, since you’re all-foster, how often do you fall victim to the foster fail problem, where the people just want to adopt a dog that they’re fostering?

It does happen. But it’s like the best kind of failure: The dog is already there and situated. They’re doing well in the home, and they know everybody, and they don’t have to move again. So it’s wonderful for the dog. And to be honest, we have so many wonderful fosters who actually have fostered so many dogs over the years and failed with maybe one. Most of them continue fostering, to their credit. So we have so much respect for our fosters. It’s such a hard thing to do, but it’s so rewarding. And the people that foster fail and adopt their fosters still continue fostering most of the time.

Finally, you are in a region with some giants of animal rescue such as Kent and ARF Hamptons. How do you distinguish yourself from them and get people to seek you out?

We foster them first of all, because we don’t have a shelter. Fosters are the lifeline of our organization, so we always encourage more people to apply to foster with us, because every foster home we have is another dog that we can save. So it’s a beautiful thing to do and also to adopt from us. You get a lot more information about the potential dog you want to adopt because they’re already in a home and they’re getting socialized and potty trained and all of that stuff. So generally, we can tell people a lot more about the dog, because it’s not a stressful kennel situation. It’s already in an awful environment. That’s why you’d want to come to us for adoption. As far as supporting us, we don’t spend our money on a shelter. We’re more grassroots in terms of the funds just going kind of directly to the dogs’ care. We have a lot of boarding costs before we put the dogs in foster since we don’t have a shelter. We pay for all the medical care, we spay and neuter our dogs, get them all vaccinated, treated for fleas and worms, and all that good stuff. We microchip every dog, and then if we have to, we transport them to New York, if they come from South Carolina. So we have a lot of big expenses, and they’re all directly related to the dogs that we see.

Gimme Shelter Animal Rescue can be reached at 631-903-9215 or gimmeshelteranimalrescue.org.