Meet Our Staff
Brett Mundy, Owner & General Manager
Brett is the owner and founder of Jumping Jack Dog Ranch. Brett graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in Physical Anthropology, with emphasis on primates. She first learned about dogs and behavior in college when working at Dogboy's Dog Ranch in 2006. Brett Indulged herself in dog training courses and seminars during her struggles to train her unruly black lab "Jack", who was the inspiration behind the dog ranch. Brett became involved with the Travis County Search and Rescue team and taught Search and Rescue Air scenting classes in her spare time. Brett also worked as a vet tech, and upon graduation she worked in the tech industry working for MicroMain, Apple and Solarwinds. In her spare time she worked with an architect to design her dream facility, and worked several part time jobs to save for the kennel. Brett purchased the land for Jumping Jack in 2012, finalized design in 2014 and began construction in 2017. Brett is passionate about the "people over profit" movement and loves practicing open book management where she shares the company financials and growth with her staff. Brett is passionate about ending the use of aversive dog training methods, specifically shock collars. Brett works in all aspects of the business and specializes in golden retriever and great pyrenees haircuts! Brett has 4 of our on-staff working dogs and enjoys working alongside them at the ranch. Brett currently lives in a tiny home on the property and enjoys her short commute to work!
Taylor Kring, Kennel Manager
Taylor is our Ranch Manager at Jumping Jack and we are so excited to have him on board! Taylor has worked within the animal industry since 2008 and loves working with dogs and people. He discovered his love for animals at a very young age and found his passion while doing volunteer work for Montgomery Animal Shelter in Houston, Tx. Taylor has experience in supervising/managing different boarding facilities such as Pet Paradise - Will Clayton in Houston, and Dogboy's Dog Ranch in Austin. Taylor lives on site and often boards some of our more sensitive pups in his home. He has two furry boys of his own to love; a mini Australian Shepherd named Bear, and a American Staffordshire Terrier named Tyson. He also has a very sassy cat named Stevie. He spends most of the day being roasted by the staff. Taylor is so excited to take the leap to Jumping Jack and we are happy to have him on board!
Amanda Adams, Office Manager
Amanda is a Louisiana native, but has been in Austin for the last 10 years. When she isn’t spoiling her resident dog, Hazel, or foster dogs, she loves seeing live music, dancing, hiking, camping, bouldering, volunteering, traveling internationally, and visiting the national parks. Amanda’s love of exploration recently brought her to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro before starting here at Jumping Jack Dog Ranch and she is committed to a lifetime of learning about other cultures and ways of life through travel.
Amanda has a Masters degree and specialized in the rehabilitation of speech, language, cognitive and swallowing skills in the geriatric population prior to leaving the field to pursue her passion of working in the dog industry. After helping create the satellite of a rescue group here in Austin, she began fostering and she soon realized that working with dogs and trying to learn as much as she could to help them was her passion and was what she was spending all of her free time doing. She enjoys working with fearful dogs and helping them become the best versions of themselves through fostering.
She is excited to continue learning and growing as a member of the Jumping Jack Team!
Caitlyn LaGrone, Grooming Manager
Caitlyn has been working in the pet care industry since 2010. She started working as a Veterinary Assistant before becoming a Veterinary Technician at a small animal clinic in her hometown area of Beaumont, TX. After graduating from Lamar University in 2014 with a Bachelor’s of Communications, Caitlyn continued working in pet care part time while working as a producer at a local news station. It only took a few months before realizing animal care was always her true calling. Being a creative person, she decided dog grooming was the perfect way to mix animal care with art! She began a grooming apprenticeship in 2014 and became internationally certified through JKL Dog Grooming School. Caitlyn has three pups: Teagan a Shetland Sheepdog, Isla a Smooth Coated Collie and Nami a Pomeranian. Her fur family also includes 4 ferrets named Arrakis, Isaac, Galadriel and Hazelnut. In her free time, Caitlyn enjoys camping, road tripping, chilling at the local creek spots, playing video games and going to shows. Her favorite hobby is flow art. She spins various fire and LED props at home, with friends, and at events including her favorite place, the Texas Renaissance Festival.
Hailee Rawson, Studio Photographer & Assistant Kennel Manager
Hailee is a Colorado native and found a love for the outdoors and animals in the trails of her hometown, Estes Park. Here in Texas, she loves spending quality time with her dog, Levi and taking him on hikes. Levi gave her a newfound passion in dogs and dog behavior. Hailee has been in the kennel industry for 4 years and we’re so happy to have her as one of our shift leads. In the future, she would love to work with the National Parks Service, maintaining and making trails with Levi by her side.
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Hailee has learned studio photography at the ranch, and is currently taking photography classes to perfect her craft. You can see her photos on our instagram page, or sign up for a studio photo session with your pet on our website!
Austin Palomino, Assistant Kennel Manager
Growing up Austin has always known she wanted to work with animals. She loves learning about all different animals and topics from behavior/training, grooming and vet medicine. Her passion for animals first started pet sitting part time at a young age but Austin first started working in the dog and cat daycare/boarding industry at 18 where she fell in love with the work. She has now worked at multiple different kennels around the Austin/Kyle area. Austin has a Shepard Husky mix named Lola and despite being around dogs all day she absolutely loves cats and has 3 of her own!
Berkley Irwin, Assistant Office Manager
Berkley is a child of a military family, but identifies as a San Antonio native. She spent most of her adolescence training as a competitive dancer, and eventually danced on her high school and college dance teams. After graduating from Texas State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Dance Education in 2018, she worked as a public school educator and dance/cheer coach. However, after a very challenging few years in education due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she decided she needed a much needed break from the profession to renew her mind and heart. Jumping Jack is her first job in the animal industry, but she has always had a great love of dogs and animals in general. She has one dog: a long-haired dachshund named Butters. She has an immense love for both Harry Potter and Taylor Swift. In her free time you can find Berkley listening to true crime podcasts, watching Law & Order, walking Butters, thrift shopping, or curled up on the couch with a good book or her Nintendo Switch. She is excited to be a part of the JJ family!
Aleeya Rodriguez, Groomer
Aleeya is on hiatus from her roller derby tour and is joining us at the Ranch! With a lifelong passion for animals, we are delighted to have Aleeya as a part of our Jumping Jack family. We admire her commitment to a winged eyeliner that could cut and her massive collection of Pokemon. We are so proud to have a certified Pokemon trainer on our team!
Andy Gomez, Kennel Lead
Andy has been working with dogs for 7 years and has quickly advanced at Jumping Jack into a kennel lead! Andy's passion for dogs sparked at a young age when he fostered dogs. Andy accepted a job at Austin Pets Alive where he advanced to the behavior team and fined tuned his skills handling difficult dogs as a lead behavior specialist. Andy loves finding friends for dogs that don’t have many, and he loves working with dogs that are scared of men. Andy loves to find new hobbies and hanging out with his best friend Juju!
Ciera Terry, Kennel Lead
We are so happy to have Ciera part of our team here at Jumping Jack! While she has always been a lover of animals, her first job with animals was right here at Jumping Jack! She is thrilled about all of the new information she is learning with us, and is thankful for all the behavior knowledge she has gained. Lover of the outdoors, Ciera is into Tree shaping and has a collection of small saplings she is growing in unique geometric patterns. She hopes that one day, they will grow into magnificent artistic features. Hope she doesn't move anytime soon, that would suck to have to move all her trees.
Mandy Flowers, Kennel Lead
Mandy was born and raised in South Austin. She’s been a dog lover her entire life. Her home is regularly populated by additional pup friends when their humans are traveling. She loves being surrounded by dogs at home, work and everywhere in between. Her professional career with dogs began at Dog Boys Dog Ranch in 2017 working in the kennel. From kennel technician to kennel manager she enjoyed every part of the experience until Dog Boys closed in February of 2022. Mandy then accepted a position at Jumping Jack and was thrilled to find that a good amount of Dog Boys dogs were going to JJ as well. She continues to gain knowledge about all things dog through personal experience and from their well educated staff. Moose, her handsome sidekick is her best friend in the world. You’ll find him here at Jumping Jack working along side her.
Mandy's motto is “Do what you love and call it work.”
Olivia Sullivan, Kennel Lead & Apprentice Photographer
Ever since Olivia was little, she felt as if she was meant to work with dogs. She even showed her English Setters at a few dog shows as a Junior Handler, and through her high school FFA program she a raised a lamb named Chicken. She decided to move from Spring, TX to Austin, TX around October 2021 and began working at Jumping Jack a couple months later! She has a huge heart for every dog she meets (especially golden retrievers), and is glad to be able to work at her dream job! Since working at Jumping Jack and gaining more dog knowledge she has adopted a big golden retriever named Maverick. She loves being able to care for our Jumping Jack pups and strives to learn as much as she can each and every day. Her ultimate goal is to be every dogs best friend!
PJ Abels, Staff Trainer (CPDT), Kennel Lead
PJ has been professionally working with dogs for around 10 years and is an on-site resident at Jumping Jack Dog Ranch. PJ's passion for dogs was sparked by their first dog Nina, a behaviorally challenging dog with high management needs. PJ started their career at Austin Pets Alive on the Behavior team working with challenging cases specializing in aggression. PJ became a certified dog trainer (CPDT) through the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT). These days you will usually find PJ with their working dog JoJo, leading a shift, or working on the Jumping Jack garden!
Amy-Michelle, Kennel Tech
Amy-Michelle is a Utah native who has been living in Austin for 6 years. She has been working in the animal industry since 2017 as a kennel tech, as a vet tech assistant at an animal emergency hospital, and as a cat adoption counselor at Austin Pets Alive. One of her passions is photography. She works as a freelance photographer, focusing (given her love for music) on capturing photos of live music performances. In addition, she has experience as a studio portrait photographer and as a traveling sports photographer. She loves taking photographs of the dogs too! If she's not at home, she is watching live music or hiking.
August McDermid, Kennel Tech
August has loved animals, and especially dogs, for as long as she can remember. Being raised at a family-operated animal rescue, she has an innate respect for all types of animal and pet situations. She owns two rescue dogs and one tripawd wolf hybrid. In high school, she had the opportunity to assist the owner and primary trainer at Freedom Canines International, and continued to work with him after graduation to train her own dogs. August's dream is to remain in the animal care industry and ideally to be in a situation where she can help dogs live their best life, even if she only gets to be a part of it for a few days or hours at a time while their owners are away.
Jacob McMullen, Kennel Tech
Jacob is originally from Siberia and grew up surrounded by native wildlife. He got his first dog when he was five years old and immediately fell in love. Since moving to Texas in his teens, he has made it his mission to make sure every dog he meets feels loved and wanted. When he is not at Jumping Jack, he likes to spend his time practicing his yodeling and crocheting blankets for shelter pups.
Nez Gomez, Kennel Tech
Nez is originally from Carrizo Springs but wanted to advance her education so she moved up state to get her degree in Dance Education. Nez was a kickbox instructor and dance teacher for a few years but her heart was missing her true passion, dogs! Since Nez was young, she always had the worst habit of taking in any dog that she saw on the road or that was offered to her. Her mission was to give every dog in her care the best life she could provide. Nez started her journey into the animal industry and worked in multiple areas ranging from vet clinics to grooming salons to try to learn all I she could! Nez saved every penny so she could purchase a few acres to build her own personal kennel for her pack of 7 rescues! There's not a thing Nez wouldn't do for her babies. Nez's personal goal is to have a beautiful space not only for her personal dogs, but also to take in more foster dogs and help any dogs that need some loving! Her career goals are to become a Canine Rehabilitation Therapist and continue to learn and grow with Jumping Jack! When not at work, Nez loves to cook, workout, and teach dance!
Raegan Warren , Kennel Tech, Groomer, & Receptionist
Raegan has always had a soft spot for dogs. From a young age, she spent a majority of her free time learning about dog breeds and what makes each dog so special and unique. After attending college at the University of Texas San Antonio, Raegan fell in love with the dog industry in 2017 and hasn't looked back. Even in her free time, Raegan chooses to spend her time with dogs - whether it be one of austin's many dog friendly bars, taking a trip to Zilker, or even a day on the lake; you can usually expect to see her two dogs, Draco and Sammy, in tow.
Raegan knows her calling in life lies with dogs and is honored to be a part of the Jumping Jack Dog Ranch Team!
Tiffany Hinson, Kennel Tech & Receptionist
Tiffany came to us with 5 years of kennel and office experience. While she spends most of her time in the office at work, she never misses a chance to sneak off the kennel to get some one-on-one dog time. Tiffany is studying Wildlife Biology at Texas State University and hopes to work in wildlife rehabilitation. When she's not at work, you can find Tiffany thrifting, up-cycling, crafting, and spending time with her blue heeler boys at home.
Yasmin Tellez, Kennel Tech
Yazmin's love for animals started at a very young age, however, circumstances didn't allow her to adopt a pet. She moved forward always keeping that love for pets in her heart and found her way to Austin Vet Hospital, where she worked for 4 years, the entire time knowing her perfect pup was out there. Wanting to work more directly with dogs, she made her way to Dog Boys Dog Ranch, where she worked for 6 months before coming to us in February 2022. On her very first day at Jumping Jack she met a foster dog named Sasha and instantly fell in love. They are now living happily ever after together as Yazmin continues to learn and grow her skills here as a part of the Jumping Jack family!
Natassia Gerstenkorn, Lead Bather & Receptionist
Natassia is from San Antonio, where she grew up with a plethora of family pets and fosters. After high school she worked as a dog bather for 2 years until she moved up to San Marcos to study wildlife biology at Texas State University. She has now been at Jumping Jack for a little over two years where she has learned a lot about dog behavior. She started strong in the kennel, has worked in office, and now mainly works in the grooming department where she is one of our lead bathers.
Abby Mandel, Lead Receptionist & Kennel Tech
Abby is a recent graduate from James Bowie High School, where she was a part of the yearbook staff and also a baseball manager for the varsity team. She is currently studying communications/multi media design at Texas State. Abby is a creative soul who loves a good book and enjoys spending time outside with her friends, family, and of course, her dogs - a Weimaraner named Stella and an Australian Shepherd named Moose.
Her love for dogs started as a little girl being constantly surrounded by family pups. Almost everyone in the family at least two dogs, making family gatherings a bit chaotic. Her first job was at a local pet feed store called Healthy pet which started her love for working with animals. She started at JJDR in July of 2022 and we are looking forward to having her grow with our staff!
Ellyn Freiborg - Lead Receptionist
Ellyn is originally from Kansas where she grew up always having a soft spot for all animals. While she never had a pet of her own growing up, she was surrounded by horses and ranch dogs and loved every one of them as her own. When Ellyn is not at work, she is drawing and painting anything that sparks her creativity. She is currently pursuing a degree in Video Game Art and hopes to one day become a concept artist! In the mean time she's excited to learn more about dogs and hopefully find her fur-ever friend!
Madison Marek - Receptionist
A Virginia transplant, Madison is very excited to be a member of the Jumping Jack team! She absolutely adores her border collie, Leo - he is her first born son. She is on track to graduate from Texas State University with an Agricultural Degree. When not at work, Madison can be found floating the river or taking Leo on many different adventures like Barn Hunting or swimming!