I never expected to be here.

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When we lost Roland on October 15th, 2022, my whole world collapsed in our living room. The call came in and I just dropped the phone. I couldn't process the words. I pushed it to Michael and fell apart. In the days that followed, I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. And I definitely could not have told you that within a week, Michael and I would start a nonprofit in his name. That's not something you plan for. That's something you do because the grief is so overwhelming that movement feels like the only option.

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So we moved. And we built. And we fought. And here we are, more than three years later.

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I want to be honest with you about what those three years have actually looked like, because I think you deserve that. And honestly, I think I needed to say it out loud.

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We have lost pets before. We have lost people we love before. Grief is something I thought I understood. But what I have been slowly unpacking, with the help of an incredible therapist, is that what I have been carrying isn't just grief. I was recently diagnosed with PTSD from what happened to Roland. And that distinction, grief versus trauma, has changed everything for me.

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The grief of losing Roland is real and deep and it always will be. But the trauma of how we lost him is something different entirely. The stories that kept changing. The whiplash of being told one thing and then another and then another. Being blamed. Being blocked. Never getting a clear or complete answer about what happened to Roland or Blanche that day. That uncertainty burrowed into me in a way I did not fully recognize until I started doing the work to understand it.

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For three years, almost everything connected to Roland and this nonprofit reopened that wound. I was stuck in a loop I couldn't get out of: this was my fault. I should have listened to my gut when they slipped out the gate that morning. I should have turned around. But I stilled him dropped him off. His death is my fault.

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That is not a healthy place to run an organization from. But it was where I was, and I didn't fully see it.

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What therapy has given me, slowly and imperfectly and not linearly, is the ability to start separating those two things. To feel the love and the loss without it immediately collapsing into guilt and trauma. To see a photo of Roland in his little canary yellow harness and actually smile. To look at what RSGC is becoming and feel proud of it, not just burdened by it. That is genuinely new for me. And I don't take it for granted.

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I also want to be honest about the organization itself.

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Running a nonprofit is hard. It is daunting and unglamorous and there is so much more to it than the work you can see. It is just the two of us back here. And in those early years, we were operating with so much urgency and pain that we said yes to everything. Every issue felt important, because every issue is important. We spread ourselves thin. We burned out. And we were trying to do all of this while we were not, if I'm being real, in a mentally healthy place to sustain it.

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So we stepped back.

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We spent real time asking: what are we actually here to do? What problems can we meaningfully move the needle on? What does a version of this look like that we can actually sustain without it costing us everything else? We went through RSGC with a fine tooth comb. We refreshed and refocused and honestly, re-energized. We even streamlined our mission. This brand refresh is the visible result of all of that internal work.

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And now, for the first time in a long time, I can tell you what comes next and actually feel excited about it.

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We are working on a way to meaningfully honor the dogs who have been lost in the care of daycares and boarding facilities across the country. Not just to name their loss, but to celebrate who they were and the love they brought to their families. Because that love is the whole point.

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We are building resources to help dog care businesses raise the bar from within, practical tools for self-auditing their own practices and identifying where they can do better. We believe there are a lot of good businesses out there who want to do right by the dogs in their care, and we want to equip them to do exactly that.

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We are expanding our library of guides and companion resources, things like starter email templates, care plan documents you can actually use, and step-by-step guidance for families who find themselves in a nightmare situation and have no idea where to turn or what their options are. Because we know what it feels like to be in that position with no roadmap.

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And lastly, we are beginning early groundwork for the 2027 Texas Legislative Session. The regulatory void in this industry is not going away on its own, and we are not going anywhere either.

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Roland's legacy is going to live on. And it is going to do so in a way that is more focused, more authentic, and more sustainable than what we built in those first grief-driven years. That is not a criticism of where we started. That version of RSGC needed to exist. But this version is built to last.

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And here is something I have not said enough: we need your help to build it.

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For a long time, I think we held this close. Partly because the work felt so personal it was hard to hand any piece of it to someone else. Partly because we were still figuring out what we were doing ourselves. But we are in a different place now. We know what we are building. We know where we are going. And we are finally ready to open the door wider and bring more people in.

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If this work resonates with you, if you have ever dropped your dog off somewhere and trusted a stranger to keep them safe, if you have ever wondered whether there should be more accountability in this industry, we want you with us. Whether that is sharing our resources with someone who needs them, volunteering your time or skills, donating to help us expand our reach, or simply staying connected and spreading the word, every single person who joins this silly goose crew makes Roland's legacy bigger than it would have been otherwise.

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To every partner, supporter, and friend who has been with us from the beginning: thank you. Genuinely, from the bottom of our hearts. Your encouragement kept this going on more days than you will ever know. We are so glad you are here, and we cannot wait to keep going on this journey with all of y'all.

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This is still Roland's crew. It always will be.

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With love and gratitude,

Katelyn Rohde
Co-Founder & President, RSGC