Politics & Government
Montville Resident Continues Careful Care of Animals
Strumph looks forward to Montville Township Animal Shelter's new facility next year.
- Name: Gail Strumph has been the head animal control officer at the Montville Township Animal Shelter for eight years. “I’ve been working for Animal Control for 22 years,” Strumph said. “Actually, my mother was animal control before me and that’s how I started.” Strumph’s mother, Helen Emery, had an assistant, who left. “I came in temporarily,” Strumph explained. “And, I never left.”
- Age: The 47-year-old mother of two has lived in Montville “all my life,” she said. Strumph and her husband have been married 11 years. Her children are 19 and 7. The family has three cats and a dog.
- Career: “There is a course,” explained Strumph, who is a 1982 Montville Township High School graduate. Individuals interested in becoming an animal control officer are required by the state of New Jersey to complete the college level course. “But, the best way to learn is just by getting in the field,” Strumph said. In addition to the course, Strumph has taken seminars on different aspects of animal care and disease control in the shelter.
- Time: “Officially, 35. Unofficially, I can’t even count,” Strumph said about the number of hours it takes each week to serve the community and the animals in her care. Between call-outs, adoptions, rabies testing, and taking care of 20 plus animals every day, 365 days a year, Strumph spends countless hours performing her duties. “Busy,” is how she described her typical day. The Montville Township Animal Control Officer provides animal control services to Montville Township, Boonton Township, Lincoln Park and Mountain Lakes. Additionally, the shelter houses animals from Morristown. Each year, roughly 1,000 animals call the Montville shelter home for some period of time. Every animal picked up is scanned for a microchip. “We get a lot more dogs with the microchips than cats,” Strumph said. She is in charge of making sure the facility has coverage 365 days each year. “There’re holidays, but we have to still come in and make sure the animals are taken care of—even on Christmas,” she said. Strumph has an assistant who has been employed by Montville Township for seven years.
- Variety: “We deal with a lot of wildlife, so we handle raccoons and all them,” Strumph said. “But, pet-wise, we had a wallaby once.” The wallaby has been the most unusual animal she has encountered. Most of the shelter’s residents are cats and dogs. However, rabbits, guinea pigs, raccoons, and groundhogs are not altogether unusual. Animals also come to the shelter in a variety of ways. Some are dropped off, some are captured, some are abandoned, and some are taken from places where the animals are living in unsanitary conditions.
- Bats: “Bats that are in the house and you don’t know how it came in; without knowing that it just flew in and you can let it back out, those automatically should be tested for rabies. For example, if you just wake up to a bat in the house, test it for rabies” said Strumph.
- Current Activities: Strumph said that, outside of being the animal control officer for Montville Township, she participates in few other activities. “To be honest,” Strumph said, “animal control takes over.”
- Favorite Thing About Montville: “I don’t know any other place.” Strumph said. “I have been here all my life; in this community. The street I live on is wonderful. Friendly. My 7-year-old has a bunch of friends on the street.”
- Something She Would Change: “We’re getting a new shelter,” Strumph said. She is hoping contractors will break ground in September, but acknowledged that the start date is still not set. According to Strumph, all of the towns in the care of the Montville Township Animal Control Officer recently signed 10-year contracts and agreed to “put up some capital for the new shelter.” The long range commitments help to ensure the need for the new shelter in the coming decade. The current building was built in the 1970’s as “an impound facility,” Strumph said. “It wasn’t built looking to the future. Now municipal shelters are not only impound facilities, now they offer adoptions. In the 70’s it wasn’t the place people went first to look for a pet. People didn’t spay or neuter in the 70’s like they do now. You could walk down any street and people were giving away puppies” explained Strumph. “Now you gotta go looking for a pet,” she added, noting that spay and neuter campaigns have had some success. This means that more people look toward municipal shelters in to find pets. The new facility will be located at 7 Church Lane. “It’s not going to change the service we provide or the services we help the public with,” Strumph said. “That will stay the same. But it will be easier to give the animals care.” The current facility is small for the number of animals who need it. Keeping healthy animals away from sick animals is challenging. “We do that now, but it will be easier,” Strumph said of the new shelter. The new facility will have separate rooms with separate ventilation systems.
- Rewarding: “The animals, and making them happy and putting them in new homes,” Strumph said about the most rewarding aspects of her career.
- Difficult: “Everything,” Strumph noted. “It’s a hard job. It’s not just playing with the animals. It’s not. There is a lot of work involved, not just in the shelter, but, on the outside. It’s 24/7.” Strumph, who never thought about being an animal control officer until she found herself in the position of being one, has many stories of mistreated animals. She said, “There are so many dogs and cats coming in, in horrible condition. Most of the time that turns happy, but sometimes not.” She tells of one recent resident at the shelter who was so poorly cared for she could not easily identify the dog’s breed. To groom the animal, the dog had to be sedated. It took three hours for the fur to be cleaned and clipped. Ultimately, the shelter was able to identify a good home for the dog.
- Montville Pet Parents: The non-profit support organization helps provide funds and services for the Montville Animal Shelter. “They came in wanting to do improvements and then, you know…”said Strumph of the Pet Parent organization. More than five years ago the group got the ball rolling on a new animal shelter. “Pet Parents volunteer here, and help pay for extraordinary medical care that the shelter would not ordinarily do,” explained Strumph. The Pet Parents paid for the sedated grooming of the dog the shelter recently placed in a home. “And they raise money for the new shelter,” she added. Ten to 15 volunteers help each week at the animal shelter. They walk dogs, socialize kittens, and clean cages. “If we need something,” Strumph said, “all I have to do is call the president [Sue Goldblatt] and say we need this, and within a couple of days it’s here.”
- Memorable Moment: Strumph said that every shelter animal story is memorable. However, she was reminded recently of a time when two Great Dane mixes were dumped at a park in Boonton Township. “They were here for seven months,” she said. “We found them a home together. They were brothers. They very attached and we lucked out. Right at that moment that family was looking for two dogs.”
- Hobbies: “I love fixing up my house and doing projects in my house,” Strumph said. “And spending time with my family.”
- Advice: “Stay away from wildlife,” Strumph said. “If there is a problem with wildlife, call us.” She also said, “Twenty-five cats and ten dogs are here. Come and adopt.”
