Malta Girl Scout and Brownies Troops donate food to Dodson's RezQ Dogs

Gina Lamb, one of the leaders of the Brownies and Junior Girl Scouts

Many people in the Phillips County area now have a cupboard full of Girl Scout Cookies following the hard work of Troops 3994 and 3903 – a group that consists of nine young ladies, Brownies and Junior Girl Scouts. Because of their cookie-selling efforts, the troops earned money and decided to use the profit to help someone else out.

"They decided to use the money they earned to help the RezQ Dogs in Dodson," said Gina Lamb, one of the troop's leaders. "Some of the girls went over to R and G Feeds yesterday and bought five, forty pound bags of dog food."

RezQ Dogs is a volunteer organization committed to helping place unwanted and abandoned dogs from the Fort Belknap and Rocky Boy Indian reservations. RezQ Dogs is a no-kill, animal shelter co-founded by Dodson's Anita and Jim Wilke.

Jim was in Malta on Thursday and graciously accepted the 160 pounds of dog food for the shelter.

"That was very nice of you," Jim said to the troops. "I'd like you all to write your names down so when we go feed the dogs, we can tell them who did this for them. This is very nice of you, thank you."

Jim said it was hard to tell just how far the 160 pounds of kibble would stretch, but admitted that RezQ Dogs has seen days where an entire 40-pound bag has been used in a single day, sheltering nearly 70 animals. Currently, RezQ Dogs has about 45 dogs on site awaiting adoption (along with several other species of animals.) Jim said that he and Anita place between 300 and 400 dogs per year with new families.

"Those are just the animals from the reservations," Jim said. "We also place animals brought to us from everywhere from Malta to Box Elder."

RezQ Dogs receives no governmental or tribal funding and operate solely on private donations like the one that Troops 3994 and 3903 made in Malta on Thursday. RezQ Dogs is a registered 501 (c ) 3 organization so all donations are tax deductible. For information on adopting animals or contributing to RezQ Dogs, the shelter can be found online at http://www.rezqdogs.org or by mail at PO Box 93, Dodson, Mont., 59524.

"Between (Anita) taking care of the animals and me working fulltime, even our telephone messages are always full," Jim said. "We stay pretty busy."

The Malta Girl Scouts and Brownie Troops were very interested in Jim and Anita's rescue shelter and asked a dozen questions about the daily operations (each girl was also interested in what breeds of dogs live at the shelter.) Jim told the girls that almost every breed of dog imaginable has been at RezQ Dogs at one time or another. He said that the shelter has also been home to guinea pigs, hamsters, horses, deer, antelope, cats and birds.

The nine young ladies also received their "It's Your Business, Run it and Give Back" Badges for the time they spent raising the money and giving back to the community.

"So they ran the cookie business, they have a profit and they decided to use that profit to help the RezQ Dogs," said Lamb. "The community is purchasing cookies from them and helping out the Girl Scouts, so, in turn, the Girl Scouts wanted to help out someone in the community. I think it is a good thing they are doing and the girls are excited to help."