July 2026 Animal Services Grant Awarded to PasturePuff

We’re excited to announce the July $10,000 Business-Category: Animal Services Grant recipient. Congratulations to Katie Ferencik, founder of PasturePuff.

Recently, WomensNet Advisory Board member Jama Hernandez sat down with Katie for an exclusive interview. You can listen to their conversation and view the transcript below.

Video Transcript

Jama: Hi, everyone. My name is Jama with WomensNet, and I’m excited to introduce to you our July 2026 winners. So we have with us Katie, and she is our Business category winner. Her business name is PasturePuff. Katie, we’re so excited that you’re with us today. Can you please tell us a little bit about your business and then tell us how you got started and who or what inspired your business?

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. So I adopted a couple of ponies, and they had a really painful hoof condition called laminitis. It was really tough for them to be comfortable, and it required that I do a lot of bedding in their stalls to help them.

But the bedding was very expensive and was time-consuming. I work full-time. I have family. You know, we know as women, we have a lot on our plates, right? And so adding to that, every single day I’m having to go and clean. They were very messy. Not only that, but at the end of the week, I would take everything that I had put in and take it all back out again.

Not only time-consuming, but expensive. And I was like, “There’s gotta be a better way.” And essentially, there was not a better way.

There was nothing that I could find. And so I thought, “Gosh, I really wish I could have a nice big—like a dog bed for my horses.” They’re ponies, they’re little. I thought maybe I could find a really, really big dog bed or something like that and try it out and see if that would help them to be more comfortable and be more clean.

But then the challenge became how to keep it waterproof and clean, sanitary, and all of that for them. So I just started experimenting with different materials, and it was interesting because they took to it right away.

I just did something super low-cost and easy, and I noticed that, gosh, they really loved it and it made my life a lot easier.

It ended up being very expensive in the long run because I went through so many different materials and trials and such. My vet and my farrier—so the farrier is the person who actually does the hooves—they both would come and they’d see these ponies laying out on these mattresses, and they just thought it was the craziest thing ever.

But they both independently said, “You know, you should bring this out to the world because there’s a lot of horses out there that could really use something like this—some kind of soft support like this.”

And I said, “No, no, no. I don’t need that in my life.”

And then, over time, I thought, you know, it’s true, because I thought about myself going and searching and trying to find this exact solution, and the comfort and the relief that it even brought me just seeing them comfortable, and also relieving me of my time crunch and the expense overall once I figured everything out.

It’s been life-changing for me, and for the ponies too. So, I started working with local manufacturers and created the business, and it has completely exploded.

We have now actually moved into zoo animals, which is really exciting too. So, we’ve got a lot around the corner for us.

Jama: That’s really amazing. We’re so glad that you didn’t hold back and brought this and shared it with the world. Can you please tell us what makes your business approach or the product that you’re offering different from some of the other pet beds? I know we talked a little bit about some of the characteristics, like being waterproof and helping with reducing the time and energy that it takes to clean up. But is there something else that makes your product so special?

Katie: Yeah, those are very important points because they don’t really exist elsewhere, especially in something that’s quite so portable. The other thing I would say is that we developed a proprietary fabric. It’s called dimension-polyant. an X-Pac fabric. They’re amazing. They’re an American company—well, they’re German, but they have their American group here, and so they make all those materials here.

The head of Global Technical Fabrics came to my house and saw how we’re using them here and helped us to develop a product that is actually puncture-proof and rip-proof. It’s the first of its kind ever. So that really gives us a huge competitive advantage, and it allows us to get into areas where this stuff’s going to be really utilized, and it’s going to last for a really long time.

It’s better for the world too, because you’re not getting rid of all the shavings and all the excess waste that we generate otherwise. It’s PFAS-free, which is amazing- and it’s all made right here in the United States.

The vast majority of my team are individual sales consultants that are commission-only. They’re amazing, and they are just very passionate. Most of them have been customers before they became consultants for us. They’re all women except for one. When we get together for our sales meetings, it’s a lot of fun. Everybody also gets a living wage. We don’t go out and find the cheapest products. We get the most quality products—something that’s going to last for a long time. Everybody that I work with all earn enough to actually do well in life. That’s a really, really big deal for me, being able to share that. So that really is a big part of what our company does: driving that sustainability, the living wage, something that’s local, and building up our local communities.

Jama: Thank you from, so much for sharing that. Even your consumer, the animals enjoy your product! It clearly works well. 

Katie: You know what? It’s so amazing. It’s really gratifying, honestly, because it’s not easy starting a business. Believe me, I am learning a lot of things, unfortunately, the hard way. But it’s really wonderful. Every single time that I hear from a customer say, “Thank you for making this product,” it means the world to me. I know firsthand what it feels like to feel so good about what you’re doing for your animals. And for them to also have that, it’s like the best thing. Yeah, it’s the best feeling in the world, honestly. And when things get hard, because of course they always do, that’s really what keeps me going.

Jama: Awesome. We appreciate you sharing. Thank you so much for joining us. And we do appreciate you taking the time. We know that you’re busy, so we appreciate getting to know your business a little bit. Congratulations on your July win, and we look forward to hearing more about you and your update towards the end of the year.