The Flathead County Animal Shelter is a place of transition. Its population is transitive – creatures coming to a new place out of hard-scrabbled necessity, and, if they are lucky, leaving it soon after to move on to a new, better start.
A quick visit inside is a journey for the human senses as well; resident dogs bark and howl, the air smells of fur and all that comes with four-legged bodies, and a visitor will find no lack of soft ears and bellies needing scratches.
The building itself also seems alive at times, having gone through numerous expansions to better provide for the growing needs of its services. The latest addition, consisting of 27 new outdoor kennels, will allow some more comfort for the shelter’s canine population.
FCAS director Cliff Bennett is kind when he walks up and down the rows of dog kennels, talking to each of his charges and petting those that allow it. The new outdoor kennels, which are connected to the indoor kennels that line the walls, will make it easier for the staff to clean the dogs’ living areas, thereby freeing up more quality time for the dogs.
“It takes about four hours to get all these kennels clean,” Bennett said.
Before the access to the outdoor kennels, staff would have to put the dogs outside in the common area in shifts to avoid fights in the yard. Now, small hatches on the walls open to allow the dogs outside and into fenced areas where they still have their own space.
“It’s going to allow much easier and faster cleaning in the morning, and more time to work with the dogs,” Bennett said.
The kennels sit on freshly poured concrete, with sturdy white panels separating the dogs. While they are pretty close to being indestructible, a determined dog can get through pretty much anything, Bennett noted.
With the outdoor kennels separating the dogs, more can visit the general yard just outside the kennels, giving shelter staff more leeway with who they let outside and when.
As a whole, the outdoor kennels cost about $25,000, and were paid for through private donations. Employees at Flathead Industries did much of the construction work, Bennett said.
“It’s a nice, community project,” he said.
The construction timeline was also fortuitous, Bennett said, because it came during a week when a Missoula animal shelter had taken 13 of the county shelter’s dogs as part of an adoption drive the Missoula shelter was doing.
This way, the wall sections of the kennels were empty, and nobody was too disturbed by crews cutting holes through the walls.
“We were lucky with the timing,” Bennett said. “We were really lucky.”
The county animal shelter also hopes to complete another major project in the near future: installing an air chiller on the massive air exchange system that keeps the shelter’s occupants breathing healthily.
In the summertime, the hot air is only cooled with fans, Bennett said, which isn’t always enough for the critters. The first bid for the project came back at $30,000, he said, but the shelter is checking with local companies to see if it can get bids around $15,000 and $20,000.
Until then, the dogs at the animal shelter will enjoy their new outdoor options, giving them more space and that much more to wag their tails about.