We recently connected with Nicole Kincaid and have shared our conversation below.

Nicole, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I have been in the rescue world for over 13 years. Ask my mom, and she will tell you I was rescuing animals as a child! About 7 years ago I was asked to take in a German Shepherd pup, she came from a breeder with a broken leg which happened at the breeding facility and nothing was done about it. Fast forward, when she was 8 weeks old, the facility couldn’t sell her so they dumped her at a rural shelter. Unfortunately, the break was considered old and the leg would need to be amputated. At the time, I had no experience with surgeries or amputations, let alone a three-legged dog. Thinking back, this is what started my love and passion for dogs that need just a little more, the special ones, the ones that need surgeries, and the ones that have special needs.

Prior to Perfectly Imperfect Pups, I was the Director of another rescue for 7 years. I left and took a small break but realized how much I missed the rescue world. I felt a void in my life like I wasn’t doing my part to help the crisis with overpopulated shelters and dogs in need. This is when Perfectly Imperfect Pups was born! I got together with a few friends and mentioned the idea of starting our own rescue that did things a little differently. We met, talked, and planned for a long time and then decided on our name Perfectly Imperfect Pups, a rescue that would focus on the ones most at risk, the ones with special needs, and the ones with higher medical needs.

Starting a rescue was scary! Thoughts about how to fund a rescue where each dog would likely cost more than the average – how do we pay for that? Would we be able to find fosters? Would the public be interested in this? On top of all of the normal concerns we had, we were 6 months into the pandemic shutdown. We had no idea what the world was going to look like in the next few days, months, and even years. Regardless of all the fears, we took a chance and launched the rescue in September 2020.

We worked tirelessly to make our Vision a reality. Working through all the intricate details of starting a non-profit dog rescue for special needs dogs (we call them PIP-abled). Don’t get me wrong, it was a lot of work but together, we did it. We got the acceptance letter stating we had been accepted as a nonprofit.

Our original plan was to fundraise, gain some traction on social media and make some community connections, however, just a short few days after launch, we saw a paralyzed pup at a rural NC shelter that we could not say no to. I made the very long drive to get the pup out of the shelter and straight to the vet. We shared on social media and while our following was still gaining traction, everyone responded amazingly! We were able to raise enough money for all his vetting and his wheelchair. Little did we know, this was just the beginning of the rescue’s incredible journey!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Rescue is my passion and I don’t know how to live without doing my part. Even with it being my passion it comes with a lot of challenges. Time is a huge factor, I never seem to have enough of it in the day. The whole rescue, including myself, is run by volunteers. We all have kids and/or dogs of our own, we all have full time jobs, homes, families and a life. On top of all that we run the rescue day to day and most of us foster dogs as well. You have to have passion to make rescue work and our amazing volunteers all have that passion and drive. Before I started Perfectly Imperfect Pups, one of my sayings and hashtags on all my social posts about the special dogs I was fostering was imperfection is perfection. When we decided that this rescue would have a strong focus on dogs with special needs it was a no brainer to work that into the name and Perfectly Imperfect Pups was born.
We wanted to be sure when we started PIPs Rescue it wasn’t just about the quantity of dogs we saved but the quality of how we cared for the dogs both while in the rescue and after adoption. We have support from the moment you put in the application to when you bring that pup home and long past that. We like to keep up with our adopted families to see how we can support them through all the ups and downs of adopting a dog. We love to hear the amazing happy stories, like when an adopter told us after adopting a dog that this was the first joy she had felt in a long time. Those moments are the reason for our being, the reason why we are busy from sunup to long past sundown, to hear amazing stories like that and to see the smile on their faces as they meet their new best friend for the first time.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Being a part of a special needs rescue we get a lot of requests to take in dogs. We try to always have the ability to say yes. Oftentimes we have brought dogs to our vet not having any clue what the real issue is and welcoming the challenge of helping that dog live their best life. Many times we take in dogs that have medical symptoms our vet have never come across before. We work closely with our vets to find the best course of action and sometimes we have to try many things to get it right, We always stick with our dogs, getting them healthy and ready for a special home for a special dog. The fact that we are not afraid to take on this type of challenge means that people reach out to us from across the country and even different parts of the world.

How did you build your audience on social media?

PIPs social media grew fast and strong. When we started PIPs and working on the social media plan we decided that we wanted to tell the dog’s story, start to finish, the ups and the downs and even the tragic stories. We not only do this to help raise funds for these pups but to bring awareness that special needs dogs are the most at risk dogs in the shelter.
These types of dogs have a place in our world and society. We want to share the stories about how these pups overcame the hardest obstacles, things that would put us humans in bed for weeks. We watch pups come out of major surgery and want to play and be a normal puppy. These are the stories we like to share , we want to create a world where imperfection is perfection and we do that by sharing their stories..

Contact Info:

• Website: pipsrescue.org
• Instagram: @pipsrescue
• Facebook: @pisprescue

Image Credits
Stormi Mountain Art, Five Freedom Photography