Today, Dianne Armstrong said the Montana Pets on the Net Web page gets about 4,000 hits each month, four times as many hits as Web pages operated by city animal shelters such as San Francisco's. The Helena nurse said their site has found homes for thousands of animals in the past nine months. The Missoula Humane Society and Missoula County Animal Control both are linked to the Armstrongs' site. Elaine Sehnert, kennel warden at Missoula County Animal Control, said the agency has had six families adopt pets that they first saw on the Web site. And, she said, the animals found homes just in time.
Local volunteers take pictures of the animals and the photos are placed on the Web site.
The Armstrongs put in at least 30 hours each week maintaining the site, but do not charge the shelters. In the past year, the Missoula Humane Society successfully placed two dogs by using the Internet to contact breed-rescue programs. Kate Geranios, director of the Missoula Humane Society, said the Web site received 460 hits in November. The Internet is especially helpful to rural Montanans unable to make frequent trips to the nearest town to look for a pet, Geranios said. Once they've fallen in love with a pet, Montanans don't mind driving eight hours to pick it up.