They were first discovered in an overcrowded tractor trailer that tried to cross from Canada into Montana on an icy cold Halloween night. Six months later, the dozens and dozens of dogs and the handful of cats rescued from that truck took a much more comfortable trip: On May 4, 2003, they were safely transported by a Toole County Sheriff's convoy from their barn in Shelby, Montana, to considerably larger digs in Great Falls, which officials hoped would be the animals' last stop before being adopted into permanent homes.
One hundred seventy-one dogs, mostly collies, and 11 cats were seized on October 31, 2002, when authorities stopped the tractor trailer along the U.S.-Canadian border; the animals' owners, Jonathan Lewis Harman and Athena Lethcoe-Harman, were ultimately charged with 181 counts of animal cruelty (one of the dogs died). Because prosecutors needed the animals as evidence, they had to shelter the dogs and cats until the trial started in January.
Officials turned to NRRO director Dave Pauli and his staff, who worked with law enforcement, local humane societies, and breed-placement groups to temporarily house and care for the sickly animals at a 4-H barn in Shelby. The makeshift shelter was soon dubbed Camp Collie.
Camp Collie served the animals well for more than five months—and would have continued to do so, if the 4-H hadn't needed the barn for its upcoming activities. So in February, Pauli, the Toole County sheriff and others set out to find a place where the animals could stay while the Harmans faced a second trial after the first one ended in a hung jury.
A 20,000-square-foot warehouse in Great Falls fit the bill. Pauli worked to outfit the massive space to humanely house the animals. Among other things, he arranged to purchase enough welded-wire dog kennels to convert the warehouse into a functional shelter, later dubbed "Camp Collie Great Falls." He then devoted several weeks to planning the move to the new facility. "We did background searches of all the convoy drivers," Pauli said. "We inspected the vehicles, carriers, and cages."
In April, each animal was presented to the Harmans for visual identification, then loaded into one of 50 vehicles in this gigantic collie-and-cat caravan, which included vehicles belonging to four law enforcement agencies and five animal control agencies. Because of the large law-enforcement presence, Pauli said, the caravan nary had to stop during the entire 93-mile trip.
While the convoy made the two-hour trip to Great Falls, the Civil Air Patrol monitored it from above. The Air Patrol used the opportunity as a training mission to locate and photograph a suspected terrorist convoy. There were no terrorists among this group: only 180 dogs (nine pups were born in the Harmans' tractor trailer before officials took custody) and 16 cats (two amorous Siamese cats had five kittens at Camp Collie), who arrived at their new home with no injuries, escapes, or other mishaps.
The animals are expected to be at the Great Falls facility for several more weeks, awaiting the outcome of their owners' second trial. The case has garnered significant media attention, and was instrumental in the recent passage of Montana House Bill 553, which makes cruelty involving ten or more animals a potential felony on the first offense.
Hundreds of volunteers have given their time and effort to take care of the residents of Camp Collie. They deserve sincere thanks, as do Toole County Sheriff Donna Matoon, the Cascade County Humane Society, The American Working Collie Association, Toole County Search and Rescue Team, Lewis and Clark Humane Society, and the Montana Animal Control Association.
