Renovations set at Butte animal shelter

Major renovations are about to begin at the Chelsea Bailey Animal Shelter that will finally allow $82,000 in new dog kennels purchased through a Helena man’s dying wishes to be utilized.

Butte-Silver Bow is spending another $78,000 in shelter donations on contractor work and county crews will do additional things themselves, including some interior demolition, lighting and electrical work.

“The kennels are going to be so beautiful and nice, and we will have all-new lighting,” said Lynette Hogart, Butte-Silver Bow’s animal services manager. “We’re going to have a dog-grooming room. We will have a new floor.

“The kennels will be smaller, but they will be so much easier to clean … and they’re all covered,” she said. “It’s going to be a nicer, quieter environment. We’re getting new doors … all new paint on the walls, really cleaning it up. Our washroom will go into our kennel room in the back.”

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The project will begin Nov. 6 and could last into January, she said. And if things go as planned, a second phase of renovations will occur next year. Those could include separate office and veterinary care areas, among other things.

During construction work, the shelter will be able to accommodate only a handful of court-ordered dogs and maybe a few others.

The shelter will still be open and animal control officers will respond to calls and try to return pets to their owners. But given the renovation work, Hogart is making a plea for the public’s help.

She’s asking residents to be extra-vigilant in keeping dogs in their yards, and if people pick up strays, to keep them at their homes while trying to find the owners instead of bringing them to the shelter. (See info box)

“We don’t want to take it in because we may not have room for it,” Hogart said.

Cats are kept in the front of the building, which is not part of this year’s project, so no changes are planned for their care.

The first-phase work should be done by January and it alone will make a big difference, she said.

“It’s just going to be a much nicer set-up,” she said.

County officials were aiming much higher four years ago.

Then Chief Executive Dave Palmer and others acknowledged the shelter off of Centennial Avenue was so run down that repairs were becoming cost-prohibitive. They also said the shelter was hard to find and sits next to an industrial site.

They hoped to build a new shelter with significant financial help from private donations, but the effort barely got off the ground before it seemed to evaporate during the COVID pandemic.

J.P. Gallagher, Butte-Silver Bow’s chief executive, is removing animal services from the purview of Community Enrichment and making it a stand-alone department. He says it provides important, distinct services and should be its own entity.

“It’s very important to the community and people who really care for pets,” Gallagher told The Montana Standard recently.

The ultimate goal is to build a new shelter, Gallagher said, but improvements in the existing building are needed now because “the kennels are falling apart.”

Those kennels are little more than a series of chain-linked sections that are difficult to clean and do nothing to reduce sound.

“Right now our dog kennels are not safe because the dogs are jumping and we’ve had them cut their paws on the kennels, and they don’t show well back there,” Hogart said.

Thanks to a $101,505 donation in 2017, safer and more humane kennels were purchased last year.

The donation was made by John and Patti Armstrong on behalf of their friend George Huston of Helena. He died in March 2017 but provisions in his will gave part of his estate to the animal shelters in Butte and Helena with the stipulation they be used for the overall care of animals.

Hogart said the county paid Kansas-City based Shor-Line $82,000 for 26 dog kennels, each 4 feet wide and 6 feet tall, with smooth bottoms and covered tops to help keep noise down. They are much easier to clean.

Based on Butte’s population and the size of its shelter staff, Hogart said it can effectively care for 17 dogs and 24 cats at any one time, according to best practices and sound shelter designs.

She said the county decided to go a little higher with dogs, getting 20 kennels for regular use and six for dogs that are quarantined or sick.

It took five years for the purchase to be made and they have been in storage for 17 months waiting on renovations.

The work was delayed in part because the county wanted an engineer to analyze the building and recommend changes. Then there were difficulties in finding available contractors to do the work, officials said.

John Sullivan, Butte-Silver Bow’s government building manager, said Montana-based Associated Construction Engineering, or ACE, examined the building and suggested a new design.

“It is the blueprint we will be following,” he said.

All of the dogs will be in the back half of the building, which will also include a new washroom and quarantine room.

The purchase left about $19,000 in donation money, which was combined with other contributions and put toward the pending contractor work.

Sullivan said Custom Construction of Butte is doing the carpentry work. One interior wall will be removed, seven new ones put in and five new doors will be installed, among other things.

McGrath Painting of Butte will apply an epoxy material to the floors that will make them waterproof and much easier to clean. They will also do some painting.

County crews will do some painting too, Sullivan said, and they will install new lighting and do some heating and electrical work.

The shelter does not euthanize animals for space reasons, so Hogart transfers them to other shelters in Montana when needed. She has leaned on them and adoptions this past week to get almost all dogs out before construction begins.

Mike Smith is a reporter at the Montana Standard with an emphasis on government and politics.

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