NORRIS, Montana — More large breed dogs are winding up in urban animal shelters with high kill rates, which is why more rural shelters are rescuing them for better lives sometimes thousands of miles away.
Norris Ark in southwest Montana is one of those expanding its reach, and has rescued its biggest project yet — literally — in a huge 120-pound Saint Bernard named Carson.
Katie Boucher with Norris Ark said the organization is part of a recue network that transports shelter animals away from facilities with high kill rates, and sometimes that means booking flights for big dogs in need.
It’s a small fostering, training and animal adoption operation with a bizarre backstory that sits at the Norris junction between Bozeman and Ennis.
The facility is now a landing spot for big dogs like Carson, who was recently flown in from Los Angeles by a partner group called Pilots N Paws.
Boucher told Cowboy State Daily on Friday that Pilots N Paws, “Helps get animals moved all over the country on little itty-bitty airplanes. Just private planes. And the pilots, they’re all pre-approved.”
Photos and video posted on Facebook document Carson’s March 11 journey to the Ennis Big Sky Airport. Carson had to stuff himself — all 120 pounds — into a little Cessna, but he was later bumped up to first-class on the private jet that delivered him to Boucher and Norris Ark.
Carson is now ready for adoption after getting neutered and groomed.
Adopting Carson will make room in the pipeline for more big dogs now arriving at urban shelters.
“What we’re seeing is the large breeds, like Great Pyrenees and Saint Bernards, they’re hitting the shelters at a really high rate,” said Boucher. “We cannot figure out why. It started happening after the LA fires. But it’s not limited to the LA area. It’s all over the place.”
Boucher said this trend is surprising because large dogs generally settle into homes and stay.
“And now people are surrendering them,” said Boucher. “We end up getting contacted by the shelters that are saying, ‘We’re going to kill these animals if you don’t take them.’”
The national nonprofit group Shelter Animals Count reported in 2024 that overall intakes at shelters are on the decline. But animals in shelters are staying longer.
“While intakes have gone down, so have outcomes, keeping the overall outcome rate the same at 92% of all intakes. This means there has been little headway made towards reducing the number of animals waiting in shelters,” according to the group’s 2024 Mid-year Analysis.
Men In Space Suits
At the Norris Ark property in what passes for “downtown” Norris, Montana, sits a collection of buildings remembered by the community as the infamous Norris Lab property.
Boucher and another former employee at the Lab, David Burns, acquired the property in a settlement over exposure to toxic chemicals.
This strange journey — from infamous lab to animal oasis — started on Tuesday, July 17, 2018, when Norris was evacuated and workers in white safety suits made the rural community look like the scene of a chemical disaster movie.
The intersection of Highways 84 and 287 was shut down as workers from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) disposed of harmful and volatile chemicals found on the premises.
The lab was closed earlier that year by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) due to unsafe conditions. Hundreds of containers of hazardous substances, including strychnine sulfide, hydrofluoric acid, ammonium hydroxide, and perchloric acid, were extracted from multiple buildings, all situated less than 300 yards from a gas station.
Many of these substances were improperly stored, some being flammable or explosive. Alarmingly, some chemicals had been flushed down the facility’s toilet into a septic tank, and hazardous materials had leached into the surrounding soil, potentially contaminating Hot Springs Creek.
Fortunately, sampling upstream and downstream revealed no contamination, and with the removal of the hazardous materials, the EPA anticipated no adverse effects for the creek, the nearby Norris Hot Springs and the place Carson now calls home.
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Carson, a 120-pounds Saint Bernard, touched down in Ennis, Montana, on March 11 as part of a grassroots effort to rescue dogs from large urban animal shelters and deliver them to remote areas in states like Montana. (Courtesy Norris Ark) -
Carson, a 120-pounds Saint Bernard, touched down in Ennis, Montana, on March 11 as part of a grassroots effort to rescue dogs from large urban animal shelters and deliver them to remote areas in states like Montana. (Courtesy Norris Ark)
From Lab to Sanctuary
As part of their settlement with the lab, Boucher and Burns took ownership of the property in May 2023.
“We settled out of court. It was a very complicated, multiple lawsuits,” said Boucher.
“The place needed an energy change, and we’re doing God’s work. And that’s great,” Boucher said, reflecting on their mission.
“We started out doing service dogs for veterans, and we were sourcing those dogs from rescues. And the need for the rescue animals just became so overwhelming. That is now our focus — rescuing,” Boucher explained.
Burns and Boucher initially worked together on Puppies For Patriots with a core goal of training Emotional Support Animals for veterans. But in looking to solve that problem, the couple ran into another one: animal abandonment.
“There are so many dogs that are just being dumped, you know? And I feel sorry for them. I love dogs, and that’s what we’re here for is to save the dogs and help the veterans save them,” Burns said.
Burns depends on his 150-pound Saint Bernard-Great Pyrenees cross Mickey to help support him when his health issues cause him to pass out.
Mickey is there to catch him.
“I just did that this morning. I was coming down the steps and my heels slipped out from under me on my right foot,” Burns recalled during an August 2024 interview. “I went down and I hit my leg on the step, and I bounced off of it. And when I was going forward she caught me. She held me up.”
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
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