Actor Dawn Olivieri: Rescuing the Momma Baby Army

Article by Ethan Nahté
Photos by Samantha Maechler
(Part 1)

Word has slowly spread throughout the area that an actor known to many around here from the popular TV series “Yellowstone” (Sarah Atwood) and one of its spinoff, “1883” (Sarah Dutton), has property in Polk County.

Despite being on other popular programs, those two probably have a larger fanbase in rural Arkansas with the ranch lifestyle, horses, cattle and bucolic living. Dawn Olivieri is the only actor to play two distinct characters in the Taylor Sheridan-verse. Granted, in “1883” her role is short-lived.

Though her roles are make believe, the St. Petersburg, Florida, native’s love of horses and the outdoors is authentic. Her Instagram page is proof as she discusses her journey in rescuing what she calls the Momma Baby Army.

Olivieri was on location in Utah watching snowflakes as she tried during her busy schedule to make arrangements from afar for her ranch and horses. Meanwhile, Arkansas was preparing for its first below-freezing temperatures the week before Halloween.

“We did ‘1883’ down around the Fort Worth area and then ‘Yellowstone’ is in Montana,” Olivieri said. “I’m just jumping all over the place. This is a different show. This is a new show called ‘Homestead,’ and it’s a post-apocalyptic, faith-based series from the same people who made ‘The Chosen.’ It’s gonna be a regular thing. I’m in it from the beginning. We’re gonna only do the first two episodes out here for now, wait for winter to pass and then as soon as the snow melts, we’ll do the rest of them.”

Olivieri was hoping to return to Arkansas to take care of things at the ranch.

“There’s a flurry happening up here right now. I’m stressed out because I just wanna get home so I can winterize all the water lines and, I’m working on getting a well dug for the horses. I’m like, ‘Don’t freeze right now. It’s too soon.’”

Return to Arkansas
As the second weekend of November was coming to an end, she was doing a livestream on Instagram in the rainy weather. They were preparing to build a new pen for more horses arriving, clearing pasture, organizing, and ordering medicine and feed.

The new website moonmountainsanctuaryandrescue.com went live Tuesday for adopting some of the healthy horses. On Instagram, it’s moon_mountain_sanctuary.
Olivieri isn’t the only one jumping around from place to place. Her veterinarian partner and friend Dr. Cameron Stoudt of Equine Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation bounces between the Fort Worth, Texas, region and Arkansas. She can occasionally be seen doing livestreams, showing the health and progress of the rescued horses.
“Yeah, she’s in [Arkansas] right now. I’ve been texting her,” Olivieri said. “I’ve been so focused on what we need to winterize. I’ve been texting everybody and trying to be the command center from afar. She runs a big equine clinic just out at Pilot Point, Texas. I’ve been shipping her up here. She’s our official vet for the rescue now. So very exciting.”

The Instagram videos with Stoudt speaking on the foals are in Texas. Olivieri said, “She took three babies with her that were the sickest. She does a 24-hour monitor and checks blood levels and all the things I can’t do on the front tier on the ranch.

“Cameron’s actually a family friend. My sister [Bettina] is a vet and Cameron and her, they are alumni over in OSU, and that’s how I know Cameron. And they’re also, just because they’re in sports medicine, they have a cutting-edge facility so they’re able to really do a lot of things that it’s a little bit tougher to get from local vets, you know?

“But I still work with everybody. I still work with Randy and PETA over at the Ouachita [Equine Clinic] horse clinic there. Yeah. So, I get vitamin bags from them. I get a lot of medicines that I need quickly from them. So, we all work out together, you know, it’s just who, who has access to what?

The actor’s love goes well beyond horses and isn’t just a spur of the moment fascination. She has a history of attending events such as the Genesis Awards, which are annually awarded by the Humane Society of the United States to individuals in the news and entertainment media for producing outstanding works that raise public awareness of animal issues. She also supports conservation groups, or the Environmental Media Association, and groups such as Global Green USA for a sustainable earth.

Then there are the groups to support cancer research or others for helping people in faraway places. As a matter of fact, she’s slated to be heading to India on horseback this coming weekend as she joins Relief Riders International to help deliver healthcare and spread goodwill to underserved populations in India.

Several years ago, she reportedly told Marie Claire magazine, “I will stop my car if there’s a stray animal along the side of the road. I’ve spent hours trying to catch lost dogs wearing collars so I can help people get their pets back.”

Her sister wasn’t the only one who had plans to be a vet. “I was gonna be a vet. I actually started my journey in pre-med and that is what I wanted to do. And then I made a pivot because I had this realization while I was in college and I thought, you know, I just love having animals and I don’t wanna always be surrounded by all the sick ones and the dying ones. Look at me now, the same thing I didn’t wanna do and now I’m just a frontline doctor in a way. And I’m surrounded by sick ones, I guess. But it’s got a path for you.”

“I’ve always rehabbed animals, from squirrels to skunks to you name it. If there was something hurting, I was like, I can fix it. Let me figure it out, you know, and being that I’m surrounded — my sister being a vet, my mom being a nurse — we have a very medical-centric family.

“I was always the one exploring herbal medicines and just other ways of curing things,” Olivieri said. “I always had the backup of the antibiotics and the heavier drugs that go to the pharmaceuticals and the animal industry. But I always wanted to try to do it the natural way and figure out how things moved. I have a very holistic way of maybe deducing sickness and my family has always been doing that. Nobody in my family runs a full-on rescue at all, but we do piecemeal, you know, like one animal will show up and we’ll fix that baby and then we’ll rehome it just like probably a lot of people do.

“When you’re doing that all the time, you kind of have to learn how to do things yourself because none of us can afford the vet bills every single time a stray shows up and you gotta figure a doctor or something, or, especially when you run a ranch and you’ve got 50-plus animals.

“We have a different relationship. We’re gonna try to do it ourselves first. Then, if we get to a point where it’s beyond our pay grade, then we’re gonna outsource the aid. But, for me with the horses, I honestly didn’t even mean to do this. It was a total, I call it a pop-up rescue because the actors’ strike started. Our union is striking still even now.”

At the time of the interview, the strike was still ongoing. Coincidentally, it ended Nov. 9, the day she was livestreaming in the rain.

Ed. Read Part 2 of Olivieri’s interview in next week’s The Polk County Pulse. Until then, you can help Olivieri and the Momma Baby Army for the various projects they have needs for at the links below:

Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/EternalDawnInc

 

Venmo https://account.venmo.com/u/Dawnolivieri

 

Amazon gift registry for the horses https://www.amazon.com/registries/gl/guest-view/3BYZH895LSXZF

 

Go Fund Me to build a well https://www.gofundme.com/f/t5h6e-help-us-dig-a-well?utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet&utm_medi=copy_link&utm_source=customer

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