Rachel spent 4 years at Pima Animal Care Center (PACC) as a foster coordinator and behavioral-needs dogs case manager; embedded in high volume, open admission, progressive sheltering.

During her time at PACC, Rachel helped build one of the nation's largest big dog foster programs, hosted numerous dog foster apprenticeships, wrote articles and presented on dog foster and volunteer programs for Maddie’s Fund®, American Pets Alive! and the Missouri Coalition of Animal Care Organizations. In 2021, she worked with Arizona State University's Canine Science Collaboratory to coordinate a 40-dog study on the effects of foster care on shelter dogs.

In 2022, she authored, filmed and edited the official Maddie's University shelter handling course and in 2024, co-authored Maddie’s University’s adoption counseling course.

Since her time at PACC, she's worked with other shelters to implement dog handling and enrichment programs, train staff and volunteers on dog handling best practices, host adoption counseling trainings, analyze foster programs and compile reports on recommended changes/additions to said foster programs. Some of her clients include Santa Barbara County Animal Services, Seattle Animal Shelter and The SPCA Serving Erie County. She continues to work with Maddie's Fund as an instructor for their ILC dog foster course and has developed training materials for additional self-paced courses on Maddie's University.

Her favorite things in life are naughty dogs and bullet points in emails. She also makes silly YouTube videos sometimes.