Sheltering and Caring for Missoula County’s Pets

Do you know who to call if there’s a bat in your house? What if you’re concerned about the welfare of a pet in your neighborhood?

From sheltering strays and adopting out cats and dogs, Missoula Animal Services staff work to ensure the health and safety of animals in Missoula County. This week, the Missoula County Commissioners spoke with Holli Hargrove, manager of MAS, to talk about the exciting new remodel of the shelter and much more.

Thank you to Missoula's Community Media Resource for podcast recording support!

Transcript

Josh Slotnick: [00:00:11] Welcome back to the agenda, everybody with the Missoula County Commissioners. I'm Josh Slotnick and I'm here joined by my fellow commissioner and friend Dave Strohmaier and our fellow commissioner and friend Juanita Vero is away this week. But not to fear, we are joined by our very own hours as Missoula County's, our very own Holli Hargrove, who's the manager of Animal Services. Welcome, Holli.

Holli Hargrove: [00:00:32] Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:00:33] Good to have you with us. I was hoping for something like at the groundbreaking for the new shelter where you. We actually had some animals there with little hard hats on. Goodness.

Holli Hargrove: [00:00:43] Oh, my gosh, I should have brought a dog or cat with.

Josh Slotnick: [00:00:46] A hard hat.

Holli Hargrove: [00:00:48] I have, I have a couple of hard hats, so I could have made that happen. And I didn't even think to bring someone with me.

Josh Slotnick: [00:00:54] Well, next, next time there will be a next time and you can bring somebody.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:00:57] That's okay. Well, I guess just before we get into specifics of what it is that you and your team do out at the the shelter and with animal Services. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you made it into this position that you're in.

Josh Slotnick: [00:01:13] I do detect a faint southern accent that may need to be explained farther.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:01:18] Southern Montana!

Josh Slotnick: [00:01:19] I think maybe, maybe past Ravalli County. Oh.

Holli Hargrove: [00:01:22] Actually it's Alabama. I was born in Alabama. I haven't lived there in many years, but I was born in Alabama. I have lived in several different states. I've worked in both nonprofit and government sheltering. So I've been doing this going on about 15 years now.

Josh Slotnick: [00:01:39] Great.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:01:39] Well, to dive right into it, we've used the phrase animal services, and that might be new to a lot of folks, because for as long as I've been involved in local government here, it's been referred to as animal control.

Holli Hargrove: [00:01:51] It has been. So it's very exciting. We are now known as Missoula Animal Services. Animal control is definitely, you know, a big part of our department. We have animal control officers responding to calls throughout the community, but we also have staff that are licensed dogs and issue other permits. We intake lost animals and owners surrender animals from the public. Oftentimes people come in and don't realize that we do have an adoption program and find homes for dogs, cats, sometimes guinea pigs, rabbits, birds, the occasional lizards. You just you never know. So we do have an adoption program. We give out when we have food and other supplies that have been donated, and we have people in need, we will give those supplies out to people who can use them. We have volunteers and fosters that help us out a lot and make it possible to do what we do. They come in and socialize the cats. They walk dogs for us when we have a need for a foster to provide temporary housing for kittens or puppies that are underage until they're available for adoption. Foster homes help us with that, as well as if we have an animal that's recovering from a medical procedure. And they would they recover better in a foster home. Wow. So yeah, we do a lot of things in addition to what people think of as animal control and enforcing the ordinances.

Josh Slotnick: [00:03:08] Wow. So what are some of the reasons? I guess you kind of hit on these, but what are some of the reasons why people would call animal services.

Holli Hargrove: [00:03:14] To report an injured animal or a stray dog? Definitely give us a call. Any animal bites to people or just animal to animal, you know, incidents that happen if somebody is concerned about cruelty or neglect to an animal or just want a welfare check done on an animal, if you've found a pet, you should call us. But if your pet goes missing, you should also notify us. And we do post every evening on our Facebook page all of the strays that come in. So if you're if you've lost your pet, I encourage people to check on that site to see if we've possibly gotten the dog in that day or your cat in. If you would like to adopt an animal, give us a call because we have animals for adoption.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:03:54] I have adopted two cats over the years.

Holli Hargrove: [00:03:56] Yes, definitely. Give us a call if you would like to adopt just to come out even. And you know, if you want to come out and volunteer, give us a call or foster if you need to license your dog. All dogs in the city and county are by ordinance are to be licensed. So if you need a license, your dog come on out to animal control and do that as well.

Josh Slotnick: [00:04:13] What does a person get for having their animal licensed? What's the benefit there beyond obeying the law, which is a good idea. What's in it for somebody to end their pet to to get licensed?

Holli Hargrove: [00:04:22] We know that their animal is vaccinated. If the animal comes in licensed, it allows us to help get them back to their owner. Um, it definitely it's it's not our whole budget, but it definitely helps us to run the programs that we run and provide the care that we give to animals that don't have a home until we can find them a home. You know, a lot of our animals come in that are injured or need medical care. And so we do make sure that a lot of people will say on Facebook, get that animal to a vet or cut that animal's nails and things like that when they've just come in. Their intake photos aren't always the best, but it does support the work that we do. It supports the officers going out and running calls to check on cruelty, neglect animals, or when we've got animal bites where they go out and investigate those. We get calls oftentimes where somebody says an animal has been abandoned in a home or on a property.

Josh Slotnick: [00:05:19] So it sounds like licensure generates revenue that helps you do your good work. And it also helps you meet the needs of the animals.

Holli Hargrove: [00:05:27] It does.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:05:27] Josh asked earlier some of the reasons why someone might reach out and engage animal services. Have you run into calls or instances where someone might have reached out and may have been better served calling somewhere else? Or are there calls that should be directed to a place other than animal services?

Holli Hargrove: [00:05:49] Well, one thing people do call us about frequently that we don't do is they want us to come out and trap cats or pick up cats, Trap cats.

Josh Slotnick: [00:05:58] Trap cats. Why would somebody want a cat trapped?

Holli Hargrove: [00:06:00] A lot of people don't want a cat on their property. If it's being a nuisance cat. If they're unaltered, they might be exhibiting behaviors that mating behaviors. Some people might find a nuisance.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:06:12] Offensive mating behaviors.

Josh Slotnick: [00:06:13] Offensive mating behaviors.

Holli Hargrove: [00:06:15] Or they common.

Josh Slotnick: [00:06:16] Downtown problem.

Holli Hargrove: [00:06:19] They also reproduce quite frequently in large numbers, and they don't want 1 or 2 cats to turn into 30 cats.

Josh Slotnick: [00:06:29] So somebody somebody would call you and say, there's a cat in my backyard. It's not my cat. Come get it. Right. And what do you tell that person?

Holli Hargrove: [00:06:35] We let them know they are more than welcome to bring the cat to us. Or they can come and get a trap from us and trap the cat.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:06:43] So you supply traps?

Holli Hargrove: [00:06:44] We do have.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:06:45] Traps.

Holli Hargrove: [00:06:45] Leghold traps. They can. No, no, no, they're safe traps. You put the food in, and when they step on a little lever, the door closes behind them so they can bring the cats to us. Cats don't have leash laws, so we're not going to come out and get a cat that's walking down the sidewalk. But a lot of times, though, not all cats are lost. They usually know exactly where they live. So. So be careful before you snatch up a cat to, um, bring it to us. We also often get wildlife calls that are beyond our scope. Um, a lot of times, deceased wildlife pickups or injured wildlife such as deer.

Josh Slotnick: [00:07:21] Who should folks call for that?

Holli Hargrove: [00:07:22] It really depends on the situation. If it's a domestic animal, such as a dog or cat, you can call Missoula Animal Services and one of our officers will go out and pick that animal up. They'll scan it for a chip, and if it has identification or microchip, we'll try to get in touch with an owner to let them know.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:07:42] How about if it's something bigger than a dog or a cat or a deer?

Holli Hargrove: [00:07:45] If it's if.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:07:46] It's not and it's not causing a traffic problem, it's just in the ditch. There's a rotting, bloated deer.

Holli Hargrove: [00:07:51] Well, if you've got the equipment on your large property, then you could scoop it up and take it to the landfill. It's my understanding they don't charge for that. If that's not the case, then you would have to call a private company or someone.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:08:07] A landscape, a.

Holli Hargrove: [00:08:08] Landscape company. There's also wildlife removal companies. They may pick up deceased animals. I know a lot. They will also help with removing problematic wildlife for people, but they may also have the ability to remove a larger animal off of a person's private property.

Josh Slotnick: [00:08:25] What if there's a dead deer right in the middle of the road and it's a traffic hazard?

Holli Hargrove: [00:08:30] Call 911.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:08:31] How about I'm wandering around my neighborhood, say, Rose Park, because I oftentimes see concentrations of deer there. And there's a there's a deer that's got a broken leg or severely injured. Who would they call in a case like that? Would that be like a fish, wildlife and parks thing?

Holli Hargrove: [00:08:48] Perhaps you could try calling fish, wildlife and parks. What we've heard that the response a lot of times is let nature be nature. You should call us though, if you have a rabies vector, wildlife or in your living quarters. So if you wake up and have a bat in your house, you should call us about that.

Josh Slotnick: [00:09:05] So if the animal is in your house.

Holli Hargrove: [00:09:07] If an animal is in your home, please give us a call.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:09:11] That is what kind of animals in your home are we talking about? Bats. Bats? Raccoon in the bathroom.

Holli Hargrove: [00:09:17] Mostly we get calls for bats.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:09:19] Bats?

Josh Slotnick: [00:09:20] What do you do?

Holli Hargrove: [00:09:21] We would go out and catch the bats.

Josh Slotnick: [00:09:23] How do you catch a bat?

Holli Hargrove: [00:09:24] Different ways. It really depends. Um, it depends on if it's.

Josh Slotnick: [00:09:28] Us.

Holli Hargrove: [00:09:29] Or if it's down. So a lot of it's my understanding a bat can't take off flying from the ground. So if it's walking on the ground, it's. We can cover it with something and scoop it up. It's very different than if it. They usually have to crawl up something and have height in order to take flight. So if it's up, they're probably going to use a net or just it really depends on the situation. But the animal control officer would do that. So they are a rabies vector. Oftentimes if they're you may not even know you've been bitten by a bat. So if or bat is in your house. If a bat has been in the room overnight, you may not even feel it and you don't even realize you were bitten.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:10:04] I think I saw that in a Bela Lugosi.

Josh Slotnick: [00:10:06] I mean, how how prevalent is rabies in bats or raccoons? I've heard both. Those animals can be vectors. I mean, is this something we should. If you see a bat, should you be scared? Or should you.

Holli Hargrove: [00:10:16] Know.

Josh Slotnick: [00:10:16] They a bat?

Holli Hargrove: [00:10:17] No. You definitely shouldn't be scared of bats. And they do. They have a lot of benefits with mosquitoes, the bugs that they eat and things like.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:10:25] That in your.

Holli Hargrove: [00:10:26] House. You don't want to have them in your home not knowing.

Josh Slotnick: [00:10:30] Like elected officials.

Holli Hargrove: [00:10:34] Right. We just don't want anybody to be exposed to one and possibly contract rabies. So definitely call us for something like that.

Josh Slotnick: [00:10:43] I have an off script animal question. I'm only going to ask it because it has been asked of me too. So Missoula is rich in dog walking places. This is quite wonderful. You go to these places and while you're walking along you often see the little plastic bag to the pooper scooper bag sitting on the ground with a nice knot tied in it. What's up with.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:11:01] That? That's what I call laziness is what I call it.

Holli Hargrove: [00:11:04] I mean, I wasn't going to say that.

Josh Slotnick: [00:11:06] But.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:11:06] I'll say that.

Holli Hargrove: [00:11:07] Um, you know, I have one dog, a couple of cats. My dog is never in my front yard, and I find where dogs have gone potty in my front yard and people don't clean up after their dogs. It is. It's a huge problem. I don't think it's just Missoula. I think it is a problem everywhere.

Josh Slotnick: [00:11:22] So with this, like people are thinking I got half the job done and the other half won't matter and they pick the poop up. They put it in a bag, but then they leave the bag on the trail.

Holli Hargrove: [00:11:31] My guess is they just don't want to carry it or walk with it. Or they tell themselves, I'll pick it up on the way back. Ah, that.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:11:39] Would be the charitable.

Josh Slotnick: [00:11:40] Right?

Dave Strohmaier: [00:11:41] Yes.

Holli Hargrove: [00:11:42] And they might forget and leave it.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:11:44] I mean, I was tempted last night. I was in the North Hills walking my dog, and I was getting text messages about the legislature, so I was trying to. It does not work to have a poop bag in one hand and texting in the other. So I get it. But I actually did carry my bag of poop out of the.

Holli Hargrove: [00:12:00] I tie it to my leash, or I keep carabiners on my leash, and then I will clip the bag through the carabiner and then click it to the leash so I don't have to actually hold it.

Josh Slotnick: [00:12:10] That's a good idea.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:12:11] So while we're talking about dogs and leashes and such, again, going back to my most recent North Hills experience yesterday, it's not uncommon to be out and about. And there actually are areas where you can have your dogs off leash here, uh, in, in the Missoula area. And there are areas where they need to be on leash. And Holli, maybe you could describe that, but just a pet peeve of mine is when someone's dog, they could be either on leash or off leash, but the dog lunges and jams its nose in my crotch and the owner says, oh, it's not vicious. Um, I don't know. Uh, I could do without that experience, But Holli, talk to us about leash laws here.

Holli Hargrove: [00:12:56] Follow the leash laws. I mean, they're there for a reason. We don't get calls when dogs are on leash and you can avoid dogs interacting with dogs. Not all dogs are tolerant of other dogs. Not all people are tolerant of dogs. And a lot of people will say, well, my dog's friendly, my dog's friendly. Well that's great. Your dog might be friendly, but all friendly dogs approaching someone that may have had a negative experience with the dog might not want your friendly dog running up to them, and it's rude. Some dogs think that another dog running up to them is rude as well. You don't know if that dog is a senior and may be arthritic. You don't know if he's recovering from some procedure. He could be in training or he, just as I said, could be intolerant of other dogs. It might be reactive. He might only be reactive on leash, but it's not fair to those other pet owners when you're in an area that requires leashes to not have your dog on leash, because it prevents people who are trying to follow the leash laws and have dogs that don't want your animal running up to them. From being able to enjoy areas where everybody should be able to enjoy because they're on leash.

Holli Hargrove: [00:14:08] If people do, you know, have an experience with a dog off leash and they're on leash, they can definitely give us a call. I know it's sometimes difficult, but it's helpful if we have some type of identifying feature photo, a car tag, something that we can identify the owner and the dog, and we can look into that more and make contact with them, assign it to an officer. It's you know, we just want people to be mindful of their dog and other dogs around them so everybody can enjoy these spaces. I mean, we're lucky to live in a place that has so many outdoor areas, and we want to make it, you know, a pleasant place for everyone to use and a clean place to, you know, not have dog potties Bodies everywhere you walk. I don't want to step in it. I don't want to be walking and have to keep my head down on the trail, making sure I don't step on anything. I want to be able to have my head up and enjoy my surroundings. Yeah, I always take two bags, you know?

Dave Strohmaier: [00:15:06] Yes, I have discovered that thinking I would get away with just one bag and then the doggone dog.

Holli Hargrove: [00:15:13] Goes twice.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:15:13] Catches a whiff of something that triggers the the impulse to relieve his bowels. So, um.

Josh Slotnick: [00:15:21] So some more fun things. So y'all are moving into a new space. What are some of the great things that are going to happen in the new space? That can't happen now.

Holli Hargrove: [00:15:29] We are we're so excited. We're going to have improved animal housings. That's probably the most exciting thing for us. We're going to have 11 new, larger indoor outdoor dog kennels. The dogs are going to be they'll have a choice. So currently we just have smaller kennels. They're not even four by six. The Association for Shelter Medicine Veterinarians puts out a guidelines for standards of care.

Josh Slotnick: [00:15:52] Kind of national best practices.

Holli Hargrove: [00:15:54] Right? And over the years, they found, after a lot of research, that animals do better in double sided housing, that means that the for dogs, for example, they have one side of the kennel where they can sleep and they have their food and their water, and then they have another side that they can go potty in.

Josh Slotnick: [00:16:11] So they're like two rooms.

Holli Hargrove: [00:16:12] It also gives them choice when they're in one kennel, and people are coming through to view them, and they're trapped sort of in this space. And it's scary. And they may not like all these visitors staring down and peering on them in the kennel. It allows them choice. So if they want to move to the other side or move outside or come in and approach or retreat, they have that option to be in another space and not feel trapped. So our new kennels will be indoor outdoor. So if the dogs want to spend time outside during the day, they can go out. If they want to come in, they can come in and at night they'll have a run divider. Um, we're going to have some that even our indoor kennels that we have now that are not, it won't be possible to ever indoor outdoor. Those were going to portal those side to side. So those dogs will still have double sided. It'll just be inside rather than out. We're going to have three separate cat rooms, so that's going to be great. Currently we just have one large cat room. When you put many cats in one room, it stresses them out. So instead of having one large room, we're going to have three smaller rooms with fewer numbers of cats in each room.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:17:16] Holli, on on that front, I visited the shelter a while back, and one of the comments I heard was the need to separate predators and prey. Is that still an issue in your cramped quarters now, or have you found workarounds to to deal with that?

Holli Hargrove: [00:17:34] Well, it's definitely an issue when we would have small animals, so when we had rabbits and guinea pigs or hamsters, we did not have a space for those guys. So they would be on the floor in our lobby. Well, when a dog is walking past a rabbit. You've got your predator prey there, scaring the rabbit. It could possibly scare the rabbit to death. In the new space, we will also have a small animal room, so we will have a space dedicated to those pocket pets. Rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters. Sometimes we get birds. We've had fish. Not that frequently, but occasionally we get fish, reptiles. So they will be able to be in a space that is separated from the cats and also separated from the dogs. Our cats will be on one side of the building. Our dogs will be on the other side. It's also important that they're not side by side. It's terrifying for cats to hear dogs bark all day when they're just right outside their door.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:18:28] Yeah, yeah, I resonate with that. It's it's less terrifying and more annoying when I hear my neighbor's dogs barks all hours of the day and night, but talk a little bit about what's the difference between the work of animal services and what might go on out at the shelter versus, say, the Humane Society? Because I think sometimes folks kind of confuse the two and aren't quite sure what the differences are there.

Holli Hargrove: [00:18:55] So one of the main differences is that at Animal Services we do have animal control officers. We have that portion of our department where we go out and enforce the ordinances in the county, both the humane societies and other rescues and shelters, as well as our department, have an adoption program. Both of us will take lost dogs and cats that may not have an owner with them when they're found, as well as owners to rendered animals to find them new homes. Um, the one thing we don't have that they do offer is they have spay neuter program. They have veterinarians there. We don't have a vet on site, but they do. So they're able to do low cost spay neuter for people. They're also great about helping us. They do a lot of our spay neuter for us. So we have a a kitty over there today that's being neutered. And they did several for us yesterday. You know, if we get one of an animal that they've adopted out, we will call them and say, hey, we got one of your animals in that you adopted. We can track that by the microchip and they'll come and pick their animal up. We oftentimes are really full. They will pull animals from us and take over to their shelter for adoption.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:20:09] It's a partnership.

Holli Hargrove: [00:20:10] It really is. We are sort of that open intake facility for Missoula. So if a stray comes to us, we pretty much take those stray animals. If they're in our county, private shelters don't necessarily have to. They do take a lot of strays, but they're not necessarily obligated to take the strays.

Josh Slotnick: [00:20:29] You mentioned that, chip. Is that something you guys do or where would a person go to get a chip put in their animal, and how does that work?

Holli Hargrove: [00:20:37] There's many places you can go to get a chip. Many shelters and plant them. All of our animals prior to adoption have a microchip implanted under their skin. Your veterinarian can, um, implant a microchip. Many people think they work like GPS systems.

Josh Slotnick: [00:20:53] How does it.

Holli Hargrove: [00:20:53] Work? We have little scanners, and so when an animal comes in, we scan them. We just kind of wave this wand over their back and kind of up and down their side slowly. And if it has a microchip, this little device will pick up the chip. It'll read out a number. The numbers are usually about 15 digits long. They're very long. We'll put it into a database and it will give us information on what company or what brand the chip is. And then we can call that company and get information on the owner.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:21:22] But but it's not like I've got an app on my phone and I can, uh, like like on maps, I can see my pet up in Seeley Lake or something I'm hearing.

Holli Hargrove: [00:21:30] Right. It doesn't have like a tracking device in it. You can't track it that way. You can't look on your phone like a GPS or an AirTag and say, oh, my animal is running on such and such street. We actually have to scan it. We'll call, we'll get the information, and then we try to call the owner. Now, the problem that we run into with chips is if people change their phone number and then they don't call the microchip company and update with a new phone number. We can't get in touch with them if we don't have a valid working phone.

Josh Slotnick: [00:21:57] Is there a device that would allow a person to do what Dave is talking about? Like my dog ran away and now I can go onto my phone and figure out where the dog is.

Holli Hargrove: [00:22:05] There are devices. I am not familiar with them, but I'm sure there are devices. Now with all the latest and greatest technology that I think one of the issues you might have that is keeping it charged.

Josh Slotnick: [00:22:18] Yeah, yeah.

Holli Hargrove: [00:22:18] If the battery dies on it, then you might not be able to track them where these don't have batteries. So they're going to we're always going to be able to use our scanner.

Josh Slotnick: [00:22:26] But if your dog runs away you got to hope that your dog ends up at Missoula Animal Services so you all can read it's chip.

Holli Hargrove: [00:22:33] Our shelter staff will scan as soon as they come in.

Josh Slotnick: [00:22:36] So it does seem like there's an analog version of the chip that people did for years and years that works really well.

Holli Hargrove: [00:22:42] It works great. Just have a tag on your dog. I mean, if that's the best thing, because if it doesn't come to us and your neighbor finds it next door. They're going to be able to get it to you. Return it much faster if your current phone number is on there. Even if you don't have a tag, just taking a Sharpie marker and writing the phone number right on the collar is better than nothing at all.

Josh Slotnick: [00:23:02] Yeah. That's great.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:23:03] I have a family brand I branded my Labrador retriever. So.

Josh Slotnick: [00:23:07] Um.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:23:09] Um, anyway, we have not talked about how interested members of the public can get involved, either by contributing money to.

Josh Slotnick: [00:23:19] The new shelter.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:23:20] To the new shelter, or to be volunteers. What would what would you, uh, tell folks out there?

Holli Hargrove: [00:23:25] I mean, if they want to give their time, they can give us a call, they can come out or we're located. I'm out past the airport on Butler Creek Road.

Josh Slotnick: [00:23:34] And if we go online Missoula Animal Services.

Holli Hargrove: [00:23:36] Missoula Animal Services, you can also find us under Missoula public health. Org. We are part of the health department. And then at the top of that website click animals. Or you can just search Missoula Animal services. They can give us a call, they can come out if they've got some free time and they just want to walk a dog. That's wonderful. That's really helpful. Right now, while we're under construction, we lost our play yard. So we don't have that big yard that we can put the dogs in to allow them to run.

Josh Slotnick: [00:24:02] Some dog walkers.

Holli Hargrove: [00:24:03] So anytime anybody, if they just have an hour or two and they want to come out, we will get a dog out for them and they can go take it for a walk. It gets the dogs out of the shelter, especially during the construction. Right now, if they want to just come in and socialize the cats in our cat room and spend time with the cats, they're more than welcome to do that. If people would like to make a monetary donation, they can call the shelter and do that over the phone. That number is (406) 541-7387. There's also PayPal links on the website which is Missoula Public-health. Org or we have links on our Facebook page or Instagram page, and you can find those by searching Missoula Animal Services.

Josh Slotnick: [00:24:47] When are you hoping for a ribbon cutting on this new shelter?

Holli Hargrove: [00:24:50] If everything goes as it's been going, the possible date is late August.

Josh Slotnick: [00:24:56] Wow.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:24:57] But if the commissioners don't screw anything up.

Josh Slotnick: [00:24:59] Sure.

Holli Hargrove: [00:25:00] But the original completion date was estimated to be in September. That's when we broke ground last year. They said it would be a year project. So if we don't make it in a little early in late August, we're hoping to be operating out of the fully remodeled space in September.

Josh Slotnick: [00:25:16] Right. So you talked about double sided shelters, access to the outdoors, cats in smaller rooms, separating predators and prey. Are there is there anything else about this new shelter you're really excited about that it's going to benefit people in animals.

Holli Hargrove: [00:25:29] Yes. We're excited. We're going to have a dedicated animal intake space that we don't have now. So it'll be one room. Or when they come in, we can weigh them, take their photo, vaccinate all the things that we need to do at or at intake. We're going to have a dedicated surgery space that they can get spay neuters on site.

Josh Slotnick: [00:25:47] But you said also you would bring in a vet occasionally or in some regular.

Holli Hargrove: [00:25:51] You don't have that now. We don't really even have a space now. So we're going to have that. We're going to have a larger, more welcoming lobby. Okay. Before that lobby was really small, and we would oftentimes just have people stepping over each other along with small animals on the floor. So it'll be a larger lobby for visitors. And we're going to also we've added two visitation rooms as well. So when it's raining outside or it's just almost too cold to be outside visiting an animal or the play yard's in use, we're going to have a couple of rooms. So when someone does want to meet with an animal they're thinking about taking home, they can go in one of those rooms and spend spend time with the animal in that room. So we're excited to have those rooms, because that's not something we've had in the past. Um, and places to meet new possible family members has been very limited.

Josh Slotnick: [00:26:39] Well, that all sounds really good.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:26:40] Oh, fantastic.

Josh Slotnick: [00:26:41] Congrats making this happen.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:26:43] Yeah, this is a big deal.

Holli Hargrove: [00:26:44] Thank you. We're we're very excited. We can't wait.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:26:47] Well, one thing that we do before we close is we like to give our guests the opportunity to share some nugget of wisdom. If there's a good book you've read recently, a piece of culture of some sort, anything along those lines?

Holli Hargrove: [00:27:04] I think mine was going to be more animal related, and we actually shocked.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:27:08] And it can be, uh, something animal related that our listeners would love to hear.

Josh Slotnick: [00:27:13] It actually moved you in the recent past.

Holli Hargrove: [00:27:15] I mean, we actually touched on it a little earlier in the conversation, but it was it has to do with just being mindful of your dog and consider it that all people and all dogs don't want to meet your dog. I mean, it's, you know, if you think about it from a human standpoint, we don't walk up to every stranger we see when we're out shopping.

Josh Slotnick: [00:27:38] And sniff their.

Holli Hargrove: [00:27:39] At the park. We're not walking up to every single person that we don't know.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:27:46] My mom did.

Josh Slotnick: [00:27:47] Yeah.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:27:48] Embarrassed me terribly.

Holli Hargrove: [00:27:49] Yeah. So there's just to think about that. That maybe every other dog and every person might not want to meet your dog when they're out. Or it's best to ask permission. You know, would you mind? And then allow that person to make that choice rather than not be given the choice and just. Hello? You're right there in each other's business.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:28:10] Oh that's great. That's a good.

Josh Slotnick: [00:28:12] Good nugget of wisdom.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:28:13] Good neighborliness. Well, thanks, Holli, for joining us. This has been great. Thanks for all of your work and the work of your staff.

Josh Slotnick: [00:28:19] Thank you. And congrats on the new shelter.

Holli Hargrove: [00:28:21] Thank you. I can't wait till we can invite everybody back out for the grant or for the ribbon cutting.

Josh Slotnick: [00:28:28] So for end of August.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:28:29] Yeah. What will the pets be wearing if they're not wearing hard hats? I don't know.

Josh Slotnick: [00:28:34] Sashes?

Dave Strohmaier: [00:28:34] Yes, maybe. Maybe.

Holli Hargrove: [00:28:36] Bow ties.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:28:37] Bow ties.

Holli Hargrove: [00:28:38] And flowers.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:28:40] Hats.

Holli Hargrove: [00:28:41] Yeah. We'll have to come up with something.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:28:44] All right. Thanks, Holli.

Josh Slotnick: [00:28:45] Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for listening to the agenda. If you enjoy these conversations, it would mean a lot if you would rate and review the show on whichever podcast app you use.

Speaker4: [00:28:55] And if you know a friend who would like to keep up with what's happening in local government, be sure to recommend this podcast to them.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:29:01] The agenda with the Missoula County Commissioners is made possible with support from Missoula Community Access Television, better known as MCAT, and our staff in the Missoula County Communications Division.

Josh Slotnick: [00:29:13] If you have a question or a topic you'd like us to discuss on a future episode, email it to communications@missoulacounty.us.

Speaker4: [00:29:20] To find out other ways to stay up to date with what's happening in Missoula County, go to Missoula.

Dave Strohmaier: [00:29:28] Thanks for listening.