The potential adopter from Deer Lodge, Montana, had already survived a rigorous review process: a written application, a telephone interview, a criminal background check, and a home inspection. The adopter had even secured the required recommendation from a veterinarian. The only thing left was approval from a four-person committee headed by the Toole County Sheriff's Department.
A member of the committee immediately raised a concern: the fenced yard where the dog would live was the split-rail variety. The animal could potentially squeeze between the rails and find himself in danger on the nearby highway. The committee member wanted to reject the application outright. Mike Lamey, deputy sheriff with Toole County, felt otherwise and personally made phone calls, including one to the adopter's vet, to make sure the fencing was adequate. All of Lamey's contacts agreed: The fence was indeed adequate. Adoption approved.
Such was the detail and thoroughness of the adoption process for about 157 dogs who have spent the last nine months living in Camp Collie, a makeshift shelter that started in a Shelby, Montana barn and moved to a spacious warehouse in Great Falls in May. The dogs, mostly collies, were originally seized on October 31, 2002, when an 18-wheeler crammed full of 180 animals was pulled over at the U.S.-Canadian border. The owners, Jonathan Lewis Harman and Athena Lethcoe-Harman, were charged with 180 counts of animal cruelty for transporting 169 dogs and 11 cats in an unventilated tractor-trailer while apparently providing little food, water or veterinary care.
Because these cats and dogs were evidence in the case against the Harmans, and because the owners clearly wanted to get their animals back if they were acquitted, the creatures could do little but wait. The animals waited through the investigations, the delays, the hung jury, the Montana Supreme Court ruling, the retrial, and finally the verdict on May 31 when a Deer County jury unanimously convicted the Harmans on all counts.
Under the terms of the June 6 sentencing agreement, the Harmans had to surrender all the animals except for three dogs. The court also ordered that 20 collies be awarded to kennels, as designated by the Harmans but approved by the Toole County Sheriff's Office. That left more than 150 dogs to be adopted.
After all the worry about the trials and the verdict, and after spending months doting on the animals and making sure they were safe and protected, the Toole County Sheriff's Office and the participating animal organizations, including The HSUS, found themselves in an odd position: not quite ready to adopt out the animals. Their energies were so devoted to animal care and legal questions that they had had little time to prepare for the actual adoption process.
Because the Toole County Sheriff's Office was ultimately responsible for the welfare of the animals in its possession, it went about creating a rigorous adoption application, which the sheriff's office based on previously used models including ones supplied by The HSUS and the American Working Collie Association (AWCA). Sheriff Donna Matoon also pulled Deputy Sheriff Lamey and a clerical worker from active duty so that they could devote their full attention to the adoption process.
Lamey immediately compiled a master list of people who expressed interest in adopting one of the animals. What originally looked like a list of thousands was ultimately narrowed down to about 500 people, the result of duplicate names that appeared on lists compiled by the sheriff's office, AWCA, Camp Collie, and The HSUS. Some of the potential adopters lived as far away as Florida, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.
The sheriff's office decided to break down the adoption process into multiple phases, the first being devoted to those volunteers who, in Lamey's words, "went above and beyond the call of duty." This pool of about 40 volunteers included people who had cared for the animals from day one and had regularly worked 8 to 12-hour shifts; one adopter in this group had flown in from California, at their own expense, and spent two weeks at Camp Collie during the dead of winter.
In the end, about 30 dogs were adopted out to 25 volunteers in this group, Lamey said. In many cases, the volunteer and dog had already bonded during their time together at Camp Collie. Many of these volunteers didn't even have to go through the formal adoption process because, as the deputy sheriff notes, "We knew most of them. Most were friends from down the street."
One of those die-hard volunteers was Cindy James, a Great Falls resident who, along with friend Monika Crummett, drove two days a week to care for the dogs in Shelby. That's 360 miles a week, back and forth. When the animals were moved to Great Falls in May, James and Crummett became the volunteer coordinators who ensured that Camp Collie Great Falls, as it was dubbed, would have enough warm bodies each day to care for the dogs and cats.
During her nine months of volunteering and coordinating, Cindy James formed a bond with a pair of females collies whom she named Kate & Allie, after the characters in the old TV sitcom. James was attracted to the dogs' calm demeanor. "They weren't barking," she says. "They were quiet little souls, just waiting to see what would happen to them. They were so sweet amid all the chaos."
James and her husband Bob James, a lawyer who was also instrumental in coordinating Camp Collie Great Falls, adopted Allie as soon as the sheriff's department would allow it. The James arranged to have Allie spayed by their own vet, since the sheriff's department would not allow any dog or cat to leave Camp Collie without first being sterilized. Allie has quickly ingratiated herself into the James household, befriending Shadow, the couple's nine-year-old husky/shepherd mix. "They've become really good, wonderful friends," Cindy James says.
Following the phase-one adoptions to volunteers like James, the sheriff's department opened up the process to the general public on July 1. But before the dogs could be made available, two things needed to happen: The animals needed to be spayed or neutered and a microchip needed to be placed just under the skin for identification purposes.
Suzi Hansen, program coordinator with The HSUS's Northern Rockies Regional Office (NRRO), was tasked with microchip insertion. Over the course of two days in late June, Hansen injected the small, grain-like microchip under the skin just between the shoulder blades of every dog in Camp Collie. It was a painstaking process, although painless for the dog, Hansen said. "You have to keep dividing all that hair to inject the microchip," she said with a laugh.
The spay/neuter clinic was even more complicated. Jointly sponsored by The HSUS and the AWCA, the clinic was held July 12-14 at a former veterinary clinic that had been turned into a boarding facility. NRRO director Dave Pauli arranged for the surgical team-three veterinarians from different parts of Montana-to arrive in Great Falls for the clinic and perform the procedures. By the time the clinic closed, the three vets had performed 107 sterilizations.
The animals were officially ready for public adoption. The sheriff's office, working together with the animal organizations, now had to determine if the potential adopters were ready themselves.
Each public applicant had to meet a variety of standards. Among them: Did they have the financial ability to care for a collie (a breed that, as Hansen notes, has "special needs"). Was their home compatible for a dog? Had they committed any crime in the past five years that would make them an unsuitable owner? Did they have the temperament to care for a collie? Would their veterinarian supply a letter of recommendation? Did they already have the maximum number of dogs allowed by law in their community?
The last standard, concerning the maximum number of dogs allowed by law, become a particular issue in Great Falls, Lamey notes. He said that "several dozen" Great Falls residents had to be rejected for adoption because they already owned two dogs, the maximum number allowed in the town of 56,000 people.
But even if an applicant met all these requirements, he or she could still get knocked out if the four-person committee (which included representatives from AWCA, The HSUS, the sheriff's office, and the volunteer pool) deemed the adopter inappropriate. Such a scenario didn't happen often, and if there were any disputes among committee members, the sheriff's office had the final say.
During the open adoption phrase, the sheriff's office and the animal groups had to pore over hundreds of applications, many from other areas outside Montana, including California, Washington, Utah, Florida, even Canada. Officials tended to favor those potential owners who had already owned a collie or who had done some volunteer work at Camp Collie over the past nine months.
Still, despite that, Deputy Sheriff Lamey estimates that between 50 and 60 dogs were adopted to out-of-state applicants (who had to arrange a local vet or animal control officer to conduct the home inspection). The rest were adopted to Great Falls residents or other people in Montana. As of Thursday, July 31, there were only 12 collies left at Camp Collie Great Falls, and according to Hansen, eight of them were "reserved by approved adopters." The remaining four were expected to be adopted by early August.
One of those adopters was Hansen herself. She didn't intend to adopt a collie, she says, but she felt like she really didn't have much of a choice. One particular collie, a shy and reserved dog who didn't interact much with anyone, took a shine to Hansen. "I didn't feel like I should adopt a dog, because I'm with HSUS and didn't want to be perceived as having a more favored status than a private citizen," Hansen says. "But it's a different set of circumstances when a dog picks you."
Camp Collie Great Falls is now being dismantled, and the volunteers are going home, including Cindy James, who's been there nearly from the start of this ordeal. So what will she do now that it's finally over?
"I'll probably be in better touch with my five kids," James says with a laugh.
