UPDATE 2/16/03 on the Montana Collies

Statement by AWCA President Jean Levitt

*Permission to crosspost*

In January AWCA received bills for the care of the Shelby MT collies and other animals totaling $9715.69, which includes medical expenses.  This amount does not include expenses paid for their maintenance by the Toole County Sheriff’s Office, and does not include expenses paid by volunteers who traveled to Shelby to feed, water, clean pens, exercise, and maintenance-groom the animals.

You, the members of the animal-loving community, have made it possible for AWCA to pay these bills because of your generous donations.  Again, we thank you for your trust in us.

...and now for a treat, we present our coordinator of maintenance grooming, Thea Sperline:

The Helena Collie Trolley

By Thea Sperline

Yes, the Collie Trolley from Helena Montana did get to Shelby the weekend of February 1.  There were 8 of us in total, ready to take on the most challenging of tasks so that those dedicated volunteers could take a day off.  We were successful at that goal, many of the regulars did take the day off; if they arrived at the barn, they were given a leash and told to walk a dog and have some fun, they were not allowed to touch a shovel.  The weather was unseasonably warm, definitely above freezing, the sun was out and the wind was quite calm except when a squall passed by dropping a few snow flakes.

We were not the only long distance group on site to do the work.  Several of the Lethbridge folks were there to help.  Beside the usual chores of feeding, changing the water buckets, scooping poop and washing dishes, we cleaned each and every stall.  The old wood shavings were raked out of each pen, shoveled into a wheel barrel and taken out to the ever-growing mountain of soiled wood chips.  Lime was sprinkled on the dirt and then a fresh layer of wood chips put into every pen.  Then there was more poop to scoop.  Somewhere around 1 in the afternoon the work was done.  We then took time to visit with each other and catch up with the events in our lives.  Most of us turned to the pleasures of walking a few dogs or brushing those that were in the greatest need.  One of the last things we did before the end of each day was to walk down each row of pens and make sure that everyone had fresh clean water to last them through the night.

We were fortunate that on the first day of the weekend, a group of students from one of the local high schools arrived to help.  They were given instructions about walking the dogs and how to make sure that each dog was returned to its proper kennel.  They were a delightful group of students, dogs and students all had a wonderful time playing.  Many of the females are in season, so there were special routing directions when the girls were being taken in and out of the building – as you can imagine the dogs were quite vocal and competitive.  There were still a few dogs that had special taxi rides on their return trip to the building.  Every once in a while you would see these students, lovingly carrying a collie back to its pen.  It was amazing, the collies looked totally comfortable with arms folded around them.  They seemed to be saying “Now THIS is the life!”

There was less help available on Sunday, the students were missed.  We did the usual feeding, watering, poop scooping.  Occasionally a pen would look a little sparse of wood shavings so we would put more in the pen.  On this day we discovered a new escape artist – we finally figured out how he was getting out and resolved that problem.  Again we finished the chores by around 1 in the afternoon.  The older puppies were put out into the wonderful long running pens so they could play for the day.  While many of the volunteers took dogs for walks, I spent the afternoon brushing several of the dogs.

The timid dog that I mentioned in the collie hugger story is doing very well.  He no longer cowers in the back of his pen; in fact he will come up looking for attention and love.  He will walk on the leash without plopping to the ground, his behavior is very consistent with most of the other collies in the barn.  Your prayers have helped him, I am sure.  Number 102, the blue merle from the newspaper article is a very gentle soul, his hair is very harsh and brittle, it easily clumps and will need to be brushed more frequently than some of the others.  Other than that he appears to be doing nicely.  Number 53 is a blue merle female; she is the one that had 3 or 4 ropes of matting on the back of her neck with the front of her ruff one large matted mess, the rest of her coat was not much better.  She is an older girl, with a gentle heart; her coat is also very brittle and harsh, easily clumps and will also need frequent brushing so that she does not mat severely.  Maintenance brushing is getting done on the dogs that need it most.  Because of the variety of coat textures the touch-up grooming varies from dog to dog.  Each of the maintenance groomers is using his/her own judgment as to who is most in need of brushing on the day he/she is able to visit Camp Collie.  Our primary concern is to keep the matting at bay to ensure the health of the collies.

As my end of day treat to myself I spent some time in those runs where the puppies were playing.  There were about 6 dogs in one pen and 7 bitches in the other.  They were all pretty much done with the playing until I stepped through the gate.  I ran down the length of the pen and they all gleefully trotted along side.  I then sat down on the ground and was engulfed in their smothering kisses while each one of them pawed at me for attention.  While in the girls’ pen, one came right over to my lap, sat herself down, and wrapped her head around my neck as if to say, “This is my spot, this is my person, I don’t care what you do I am not moving!” and she didn’t move, either.  What a cuddle bug she was.  There was another girl who decided it was more fun to play hit and run – she would come up and grab at my clothes and then run the opposite direction.  More than one would get into my hair and try to play tug of war.  They all got a gentle lesson on polite behavior.  We all had great fun, and the volunteers who were safely outside the pens and watching with great attention were getting quite a bit of comic relief at our antics.

We all had a very intense weekend – feeling like we had done a good job and a good favor to the regular volunteers.  If we didn’t already know how much work it takes to care for these dogs, we did by the end of this weekend.  We were all tired and had a perfume about us that is unique to Camp Collie.  We poured ourselves back into the Collie Trolley and found our way home with a few more new memories of this experience.  We all continue to pray for a speedy resolution to this case for the sake of the dogs and our friends in Shelby.  The planting, calving and spring ranching activities will soon be upon this community.

Forever in Collies,

Thea Sperline

As always, Thea, we love your observations.

Calmly,

Jean Levitt, President AWCA

Lisa King, AWCA Director AWCA Rescue

Officers and Members of AWCA

If you would like to assist AWCA with this rescue effort, you may send a check to:

                                                Bethany Burke

                                                AWCA Treasurer

                                                2807 Lee Trevino Court

                                                Shalimar, FL 32579

Make the check out to AWCA and in the memo area note:  collie rescue-medical, collie rescue-stainless steel, or collie rescue-general.