Saving dogs, showing people: Bollinger County Stray Project aims to reduce the suffering of strays

ZALMA, Mo. -- Set back on a windy dirt road out in Bollinger County, there's a long gravel driveway the leads to a red brick house and a yard full of dogs. The home of Marilyn and Michael Neville has become the site of the Bollinger County Stray Project, in Zalma, Missouri.

The mission of the Bollinger County Stray Project (BCSP), according to their Facebook page, is "to reduce the suffering of unwanted strays in our county and district area through education and by our actions."

"It's not just to save animals," Marilyn Neville said. "But to offer ideas and tips to help educate people in a soft manner. I don't believe in finger pointing because that closes a mind; I believe in trying to show somebody how they can do something better."

With nearly 40 dogs on her property, half of them are kept outdoors in kennels and the other half are kept inside. She and her husband's home is filled wall-to-wall with materials needed for the dogs and the rescue. Linens are strewn all throughout their property, from the inside of their house all the way out to their barn.

A comfortable number of dogs for the rescue to have is between 35 and 45 dogs, but there was a time where Neville had over 70 dogs on her property.

Linens and crates fill the living room space of Marilyn and Michael Neville of the Bollinger County Stray Project Wednesday.

"Most [rescues] have a building or they have small fosters," Neville said. "It's our home that is the rescue. So you have to imagine that everything of our home becomes a rescue facility. We have to live with all of this all the time. People have no idea what we've given up."

With a 14-year background in dog obedience training, Neville prides herself on her ability to recognize animal behaviors and personalities. The dogs at the rescue function as a pack of dogs would, with an alpha and other natural social behaviors.

The rescue runs solely off of donations, and is thankful for their local private donors and the corporate sponsorship of singer/songwriter Rob Thomas and his wife, Marisol, through the Sidewalk Angels Foundation. The donations of the Sidewalk Angels Foundation helps BCSP in their efforts to spay and neuter dogs and cats in the county. Neville says that since these donations started coming in 2013, and the ability to fund spays and neuters, they have seen a significant reduction of dogs being dumped and puppies being bred.

BCSP helps to make spaying and neutering economical for "people who need a hand up, not a hand out," Neville said.

"I'm just trying to show in a soft way that there's a better way," Neville said. "You don't have to dump puppies."

Dogs peer through a fence at the Bollinger County Stray Project Wednesday.

She said she is very "picky" when it comes to who she adopts to, but she wants to ensure that the adoptive family knows the history of the dog they are adding to their home.

"[The dogs] all have a story," she said. "And we try to find out their story."

Whenever a dog is adopted out, Neville said she almost always calls the individual who brought her the dog as a stray, to tell them what good they did for that animal's life. She finds joy in the adoptions, and knowing that when that dog leaves the property, they are "going to a palace, in their mind," she said.

"We put up with a lot, but we have real fun with the dogs, too," Neville said.

kjackson@semissourian.com

Marilyn Neville kisses on Wilma Dee, a bullmastiff mix, who is a semi-feral dog at the Bollinger County Stray Project Wednesday Jan. 9, 2019, in Zalma.KASSI JACKSON

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