Lauree Simmons Builds Cage-Free Big Dog Ranch Rescue

Aspen —The wind off the Roaring Fork River cuts through the Aspen Valley in October, carrying the scent of dry pine needles and woodsmoke. It’s the kind of crisp, cold air that makes you pull your collar up and hurry toward the warmth of a shop or a home. But for thousands of dogs currently living in cages across the country, that freedom to move, to breathe, to exist outside a six-by-four-foot metal box is a luxury they’ve never known.

This is the reality Lauree Simmons has spent the last two decades trying to dismantle. Before she became a savior of strays, Simmons was a builder of mansions. She made her bones in custom home construction and interior design, a field where precision and aesthetics rule. But a casual request to help with a dog rescue in South Florida pulled her out of the blueprint world and into the chaotic, underfunded machinery of animal welfare.

Simmons didn’t just adopt a dog; she adopted a broken system. As she recounted in an interview with Bryan Welker of the Aspen Times, the existing Weimaraner rescue she encountered was unfunded and operating in unacceptable conditions. So, she did what she knew best: she built. She started with a small four-acre facility. Then the 2008 recession hit, and shelters began euthanizing dogs on intake as families lost their homes. Simmons’s operation ballooned from 50 dogs to 500 in two months. Today, Big Dog Ranch Rescue spans more than 30 acres, with expansions into other states where the need is greatest.

The part everyone skips past is why the crisis exists in the first place. It isn’t just a lack of heart; it’s a lack of infrastructure. Simmons points to a triad of failures: unregulated practices, inaccessible spay and neuter services, and the skyrocketing cost of veterinary care. "What used to be a routine visit is now something many people can’t afford," she noted. When sterilization isn’t accessible, populations grow quickly. Once shelters are full, they have no options left.

But the solution isn’t just about saving lives; it’s about changing the standard of care. Traditional shelters keep dogs in small kennels. Simmons argues that confinement changes a dog, turning a good pet into something reactive or withdrawn. At Big Dog Ranch, dogs live in shared, cage-free rooms with access to outdoor space. It’s designed to feel more like a home than a shelter.

"A lot of people said it wouldn’t work," Simmons said. "But it does. And now other organizations are coming to learn from us."

Success, for her, is impact. It’s education, legislation, and shifting how people think about animal welfare. It’s about proving that a dog doesn’t need a cage to be ready for a family.

Back in the valley, the wind still howls through the pines. But in a 30-acre facility far from the algorithm of overcrowded shelters, a dog stands in a shared room, breathing in the open air, waiting for a door to open.