Today, we’re excited to speak with Rick Haaland, an animal rescuer and advocate who is the Pets for Life community outreach manager for the Leech Lake Tribal Police.
Rick shares the story of the most memorable dog of his childhood, a stray that showed up one day and never left. Even when Rick spent the summer with his grandparents, Drifter, unwilling to be left behind, walked two days to reunite with him.
A lifelong animal lover, Rick only came to animal rescue after 40 years in various jobs and as a small business owner. Through Pets for Life, he helps Leech Lake pet owners to keep their animals healthy with access to affordable vet care. This also includes the future building of a Leech Lake Animal Wellness Center to address the lack of nearby veterinarian services. Rick is currently 5th district commissioner and Board Chair for Cass County. He and his family share their home with three dogs and one cat.
Transcript:
[sound element: Native Lights theme music]Rick Haaland: One of the things that just bothers me so much, and what’s a good part of this job, is when these dogs need this little extra care and it gets to be a $1,000 or $2,000 bill, we work with it. We have people we work with. We do stuff, and they don’t have to give up their animal, because that’s a part of their family. My goal is never to take an animal away from somebody. I do what I can do to help keep them in the home where they belong.
Leah Lemm: Boozhoo, hello. Welcome to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. I’m your host, Leah Lemm.
Cole Premo: And I’m your other host, Cole Premo. Miigwech for joining us today on Native Lights, which is more than a podcast and radio show. At its core, it’s a place for Native folks to tell their stories. Each and every week, we have captivating conversations with great guests from a whole lot of different backgrounds. We’re talking musicians, artists, community leaders, animal advocates, you name it. They have a wonderful mixture of passions, and we talk to them about their gifts and how they share those gifts with the community, and it centers around the big point of purpose in our lives and that’s amplifying Native Voices. What’s going on? Leah, how you doing?
Leah Lemm: I’m well. Thank you. You might hear some scurrying back and forth above me, a lot of footsteps. I don’t have a quiet family, I must say. The kid is running around, the dog is running around. You know, you might hear them a little bit, but I hope it’s not too distracting.
Cole Premo: Oh, it’s fine. I don’t hear too much, but it’s always nice to see the kid or the doggo join us, walk haphazardly into the frame for a random hello. We’ve always been pet people, haven’t we, kind of, right?
Leah Lemm: We are very pet friendly. Here it has been kind of, you know, I would say part of the point of purpose in our lives, too, yeah, from time to time with our animal relatives.
Cole Premo: Yeah, we had a family dog growing up, Susie. May she rest in peace.
Leah Lemm: She was awesome. Yeah. What other pets have you had?
Cole Premo: Susie was the first. And then I met my wonderful wife 11 years ago, and she had Stanley, who is now going on 14, coming October here. So two doggos. Cats, unfortunately, I cannot be around because I’m allergic to them, even though I wouldn’t mind one of those Norwegian—just the big fluffy cats. I would love that. That’d be fun. But how about you, Leah?
Leah Lemm: So I think the first dog we got, yes, was Dutch, basset hound mix. He was pretty rad. The lowest woof you’d ever hear. He had the energy to, like, make one big woof, and then he’d settle back down. And then Cody, who was a black dog, just a mix of stuff, retriever, I’m sure. But she was awesome, too. And we had always gotten adult dogs. So they were with us a little shorter of a time. But now we have Radagast, who is, of course, a puppy, and a German Shorthaired Pointer, very smart, very smart.
Cole Premo: A lot of energy.
Leah Lemm: Yes, infinite energy. Yes, so we love our pets and we get to talk to somebody who’s also super into pets today.
Cole Premo: What a transition.
Leah Lemm: Set you right up there. But yeah, today we are very excited to speak with Rick Haaland, an animal rescuer and advocate who is the Pets for Life Community Outreach Manager for the Leech Lake tribal police. Pets for Life works to bridge the gap between pet owners and affordable, accessible medical care. You know, medical costs. Oh, yeah, high for pets as well. Rick is also currently the 5th district commissioner and board chair for Cass County. So awesome. Really excited to talk to Rick Haaland today, and here he is. Boozhoo, Rick.
Rick Haaland: Hello, boozhoo.
Cole Premo: Thank you for joining us. All right, boozhoo, Rick. Could you start out by introducing yourself, you know, letting us know where you’re joining us from all that good stuff?
Rick Haaland: Hi. My name is Rick Haaland. I am joining you from Cass Lake, Minnesota. I work for Leech Lake tribal police, as in a grant position through Pets for Life,
Cole Premo
awesome. How are you? How’s the family? How you doing? Always
Rick Haaland: Very good. Busy life. Delivering food and stuff today.
Leah Lemm: Well, Rick, is there anything that you are working on these days that you’re kind of excited about?
Rick Haaland: Getting a clinic going here on Leech Lake. It’ll be in Cass Lake. We are in the process of trying to build, and it keeps getting caught up in paperwork and stuff like that. A facility came open just on the west edge of town that will perfectly serve our needs. So we went and looked at that, and we’re just waiting on confirmation back. We did some soil testing to make sure there’s no contaminants or anything like that. Hoping we’ll hear back on that soon and we can move forward.
Leah Lemm: And what’s it called?
Rick Haaland: Leech Lake Animal Wellness Center.
Cole Premo: So is this separate from your Pets for Life work?
Rick Haaland: At Pets for Life, my job is to help people keep their animals. Do whatever I can do with taking it to the vet, helping them with vet costs, to spays and neuters, vaccinations, collars, leashes, tie outs, gables, shelters, stuff like that.
Leah Lemm: That’s for the band?
Rick Haaland: Yeah, yep. We serve everybody within the reservation boundaries.
Leah Lemm: Okay, could you share a bit of history about Pets for Life and why it started with Leech Lake there?
Rick Haaland: The need of veterinary care. And we’re kind of in a veterinary desert, you know? I’m in the middle of Grand Rapids-Bemidji. So when we need pet care, it’s one or the other. Grand Rapids has got really hard to get into. So a lot of Bemidji. I go give people rides, or I pick their pets up to bring them in, take them to a vet appointment, stuff like that. So if I’m an hour plus away, get them treated, take them home. It sometimes gets to be some pretty long days, a lot of miles put on. And that was a need that was coming about here. A lot. We were losing animals to things like porcupine quills or simple things that were going on, because there just wasn’t a way to get them to the care that they needed. So they saw a need, came here and contacted me to. After a few rounds of interviews, they said that I was the guy for the job. So I needed to come in and interview for it. So here I am, seven years later.
Leah Lemm: Wonderful. Well, we just love our pets. So really excited to chat with you about that. But did you notice a need then for this? Like, what’s your capacity there at Pets for Life? How many animals can you take care of?
Rick Haaland: I do as many as I can. We’ve done high volume spay-neuter clinics. My high-volume spay and neuter clinics come in, and we do 150 spays and neuters in a weekend, plus wellness. I have SERVE come out of the Cities. People come through with their pets, and the students help to talk with them, show them what’s going on with each pet. And it’s very helpful that people understand what the process is and what’s going on. It helps them to treat their animals better when they’re at home too, to watch for stuff, things like that. You know, my capacity is as much as I can handle until I run out of money. That’s how I go. So somebody says, Whoa!
Cole Premo: You’re listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and AMPERS, with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Today we’re speaking with Rick Haaland, an animal rescuer and advocate who is the Pets for Life Community Outreach Manager for the Leech Lake tribal police. So Pets for Life is part of the Humane Society?
Rick Haaland: The Humane World for Animals. So it used to be the Humane Society of the United States. They just changed it to the Humane World for Animals. It’s a like a branch off of there. The lady I work with is out of Atlanta, Georgia. Her name is Rachel Thompson. She’s the boss lady, which I call her anyway. But she’s a great helper, a great supporter of what we do here. Just a phone call away and always has an answer.
Cole Premo: Leech Lake is one of the first Indigenous communities to join that Pets for Life program. Is that correct?
Rick Haaland: Yeah, that is correct. We were one of the first. There’s more popping up all the time now, and it’s showing to be a good thing. I do a lot of work with her. I talk with a lot of the other tribal places around us, White Earth, Mille Lacs, some with Red Lake, just trying to help with what we can help with.
Cole Premo: Yeah, I was curious if that could translate to other tribes.
Rick Haaland: Yeah. And I have volunteers that work with me pretty closely and sometimes they go there to help with what we know from here to help them too. So that’s a great thing that works out.
Leah Lemm: Well, what kind of pets do you work with? Dogs, cats?
Rick Haaland: Saturday, I had a rabbit for a little while. We’ve had many different things. When we get the new building, we’re hoping that we can expand to maybe doing some wildlife with a number of injured eagles and owls. And this happened. With this place, we’ll have plenty of space to do that.
Leah Lemm: Have you had a surprising pet come through?
Rick Haaland: I went and picked up hamsters one day from a lady who surrendered the hamsters. And so I called around and had somebody who wanted to get them. When I picked them up, there werethree. When I got to town, there was 13. We had babies on the way.
Leah Lemm: Oh, got more than, more than they bargained for.
Rick Haaland: We’ve had a couple of birds that have showed up, you know, and got them to people who take care of them. A lot of people, as they’re traveling through here, pick our dogs up along the road because they think they’re just strays and they’re going to get run over and stuff. And actually, they’re just kind of traveling, and I’ve had many times where we find the dogs and, you know, they’ll be on in Pequot Lakes at Babinski or they’ll be as far as Golden Valley at the animal shelter down there. They drop them off because they think they’re doing a good thing. Yeah, then we have to take a ride and go get the animal back.
Cole Premo: I was curious, do you have a, you know, like a special dog rescuing story that kind of stays with you?
Rick Haaland: You know, when I first started, there was a, there was a dog named Winston. I got called to go out to the house. They were talking euthanasia. And I got there and was asking them, what’s going on. They said, “Well, he’s got porcupine quills so bad that we don’t think he’ll survive, and it’s been five days.” And so I said, “Well, where is he at?” “Well, he’s under the porch and he won’t come out.” First thing I did was set my kennel up outside the van. I said, Well, if he hasn’t been out, he hasn’t eaten or none of that stuff. And they said, No. So I got some canned dog food out and flicked a little bit under the porch. And I heard him move, and he made his way out. He crawled out. He was trying to eat the food, and oh my gosh, he had It was horrifying sight . Got him up. He walked into the kennel and sat down like, Please help me. And so I loaded him in my van. I took him into the clinic in Bemidji at that time. And I said, you know, let’s see what we can do. If it has to be the worst, it has to be the worst. But so they said, Okay, so I left him because I had another call to go to. They called me like two hours later, said, he’s going to make it. He’s going to need some extensive care, but he’ll make it, and you’ll have to surrender him if they can’t afford to pay for it. And one of the things that just bothers me so much, and what’s a good part of this job, is when these dogs need this little extra care, I know when it gets to be $1,000 or $2,000 bill, we work with it. We have people we work with. We do stuff, and they don’t have to give up their animal because that’s a part of their family. And that’s what bothered me so much with this. I went back and told them, I said, “Well, he’s going to survive, but he’ll probably have to be surrendered being you guys can’t afford to pay for him.” And the young lady that was there, she was just so heartbroken. I felt so bad. I thought about it, and I called Rachel the next morning. I said, “Is there anything we can do to make this work, you know?” And she said, “Well, let’s make some phone calls.” So we got him down to a veterinary college in southern Minnesota, and they started working on him. Oh my gosh, he was there for four months having surgeries because the quills had went into his joints and into his body in so many places, but the infection was crazy. They called and said, “Well, we’re gonna, we can bring him back, you know, for you.” And this was quite a while later, and he came back, and I didn’t even recognize him when he came back, and what a healthy dog he was. And happy and, and I said, Okay, so I called the people, I called her mom, and I said, “I’m bringing Winston home. He’ll be there shortly.” And she was like, really? And I said, Yep, so. And it was weird, because we started down the road and we were like, two miles from his house, and he started getting all out in his kennel back there, and he knew where he was going, you know. So he got there, and I opened the kennel up, and he jumped out, and he went running to that little girl. If nothing good ever happened in my life again, that was worth it to watch them two come back together. I had to have him in quite a few more times for follow ups and stuff, because infection was so bad in his body. They just keep popping up or quills pass through they could never get out. He just passed away this last year, but he lived a good life, a well-loved life. And I checked on him every couple of weeks. I’ll go out and see him and stuff like that. Yeah, that was my story. I think the biggest thing is, is you have to build trust with the people where you work at around here. And I’ve been here all my life in many different positions, and I have really good rapport. And all over the reservation, but pretty much everybody knows me. if there’s something we can do at home to make it better, sometimes, a lot of this stuff doesn’t require a veterinarian. We can take a little time and work through it and get things out. We bring them into our holding facility, sometimes just to care for them, get them past the infection, stuff like that, just to help them, and it eases up on the owners too. Because they’re trying really hard. Sometimes they just need that little break to make things better. My goal is never to take an animal away from somebody and do what I can do to help keep them home. Help keep them in the home where they belong. I believe they were put here to walk with us, to help us, to guide us in a lot of ways. I know my animals at home when I get sick. I had some troubles last year and I was sick, and my dogs never left my side. They didn’t care about going outside. They didn’t care. They wanted to be right there to help me, you know. And I appreciated that so much that somebody was watching me, you know. And I know people do that. We’ve been taking care of animals. When people lose their places, they go into homeless shelter, and I work with them. We’ll take care of their cats or their dogs until they get a place where they can go again to bring their animal with them. Sometimes it gets to be a little long, but I ask them to come out every couple weeks and spend a little time with their animal and let them know that you’re still a part of their life. You’re just trying to get it, get it straightened out, get it better. And that’s been happening really good, so, awesome.
Cole Premo: Well, you know, I’m just kind of curious where the passion came from, what brought you to the position you’re in?
Rick Haaland: Well, you know, we grew up living and being behind a big fish there, and we brought everything home that could possibly be brought home. Probably, we used to have raccoons. We had baby deer. Some mamas got hit stuff like that. They would take care of as long as we could to get them somewhere. We used to sit on our deck and feed the bear cubs, and Mama Bear would let them climb right up with us and sit there and we’d feed them marshmallows or bread or something like that, as long as we threw her something, she never got excited. And I’m an avid hunter, avid fisherman. I love it, but it’s a cycle. You care for what you can. We can. If I come across something that’s wounded, and I think we can help it, I’m going to try. My dad was always big on “Be good. Just be good to do everything around you.”
Cole Premo: That’s a good lesson. But you also manage dog obedience courses?
Rick Haaland: Yeah, we had a dog obedience class. That was the first one we’ve had, and we’re going to continue with it as time becomes available. Bringing 21 dogs into a room. And we never had one issue with aggressiveness. And at the end of the 10 weeks, the dogs are all off leash, sitting there in their positions, never bothered with another dog, recalled to their owners and stuff like that. That amazed me. The trainer we worked with was so excited about it too, that he wants to do more as time becomes available again. It probably won’t be till late fall. We’ll run a couple courses through the next winter again too. We have a building for it so we can make it work. One of our star dogs at the obedience training was one of my volunteers. She took home one of the sick puppies from the pound. And then she was what we call afoster fail. She didn’t want to give it back when she got it. Well, that was the star of the show, yeah. And now she’s well trained, and we’re looking for, looking for a good home for her, for someone to take care of her and stuff and move on. So you start working on another one. Her name is Molly, a Husky mix.
Leah Lemm: Molly, got it. Well, what pets do you have now, Rick?
Rick Haaland: I have a German shepherd named Sarge. He’s a monster German Shepherd, 130 some pounds. He was just a dog that showed up, never left me. I have a heeler. His name is Zippy. I say he’s the devil in fur because he gets into everything. You don’t care what it is. And I have my pit bull that I had when I was a long time ago I given to my daughter when she was having some troubles in life and help her through and now she recently got a house where she can’t take him, so she brought him back to me, and he’s just living life of Riley right now. He’s spoiled so and I have a cat. The cat is a cat. You don’t hardly see him, just make sure his food is out you hear about it.
Leah Lemm: Well, how about like a first pet?
Rick Haaland: We had so many animals growing up. There were times when we had five and six dogs. And then I think the dog that probably does it was a dog named Drifter. We used to live on Highway 200 between Roy Lake and Mahnomen at a place called the Ranch. And this dog come walking through one day, and I was sitting on the porch one morning early, eating breakfast, and he sat down by me, and I fed him a little bit, and he never left. He stayed with me. And I used to go to my grandparents in Ada and help them work in the summer. And I was telling him, “You got to stay here now. I got to go to work. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.” My mom called me, like, four days later, and she said, “Your dog disappeared.” I was like, Oh, no. And it was two days after that he showed up at my grandparents’ house. I was outside riding my bike after working. I just was out on the street, and I looked on the street, and I was like, what the heck? Drifter is that you? He came running.
Leah Lemm: Wow.
Rick Haaland; But he had made a trip a couple times with us, you know, back and forth.
Leah Lemm: But not by foot or by paw.
Rick Haaland: Yeah. That was, that was crazy. But, yeah, he did it all on foot. Found me, and my grandma didn’t like having animals around in the house and all that, but my grandpa said, “No, you can’t argue this.”
Leah Lemm: So Drifter earned, earned his name.
Rick Haaland: Earned his spot, and he earned his name. That’s why I called him Drifter. He just showed up.
Leah Lemm: Amazing. You’re listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and AMPERS with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Today we’re speaking with Rick Haaland. Rick is from the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe. He’s an animal rescuer and advocate who is the Pets for Life Community Outreach Manager for the Leech Lake tribal police.
Cole Premo: I have to ask about recent recognition you had. You traveled to Las Vegas for an award. Could you talk about that?
Rick Haaland: Yeah, the champ belt. So Pets for Life gives out several awards each year to the people working for them. So the championship belt is for us, for coming together and working to get this clinic, and we have the clinic in the works. It’s going to come. Either we’re going to have a place, a spot, or we’re going to break ground, one way or the other. That started when I started trying to get this going, getting everything together, talking with people, you know, trying to find money. And we have some great partners that are helping us right now. And we have the funding secured. We just have to either turn a shovel of dirt over or we have to buy this building that’s just west of town here.
Cole Premo: In addition to, you know, helping animals, pets, you’re also in public service. Can you talk about your current work as a 5th district commissioner?
Rick Haaland: Yeah, I’m the 5th district commissioner for Cass County. That started a few years back. I’m in my fifth year now. I was a small business owner in town here and having a lot of issues with crime, other things going on, and didn’t feel I was getting my fair shake on it. And I complained a few times, and they said, “Well, you can complain all you want. You got to do something about it.” So I threw my name in the hat. I don’t know that things have got a whole lot better, but I’ve learned a whole lot more about all this political stuff. I sat on our city council for six years and as a Cass Lake-Bena school board member for 18 years. I was chairman of the Minnesota Indian Education Association for two years. So I’ve held many hats in public service, and love them all. Working with the kids is a big reward, too. I love working with kids. So I do a lot with like, my grandkids. I have them foster some animals for us. They’re nine, eight and six. Actually, they’re out of school now. So they’re asking about what the next project is. We’ll see.
Cole Premo: I’m terrible with political things. But, could you talk about what a county commissioner does?
Rick Haaland: We work on policies to guide the county. Work on the budgets, tax levies, stuff like that, trying to save money where we can, spend money, and just do things for the betterment of the citizens of the county and making it a better place. It gets to be a little tough some days. Right now, I’m the chairman, and it’s just a lot of phone calls, a lot of stuff goes on. We have great staff, so I don’t have to deal with a whole lot. I call and ask questions. I get back to people with answers to stuff that I don’t know. We’re building four Habitat for Humanity houses in Cass Lake here that we use part of our ARPA money to start a workforce housing fund. And that was a few years back. With the groups we partnered with, that just snowballed. It wasn’t long, we had a big pot of money and all everybody working, and it’s coming together. And we’re going to get these ones up, and then we’re going to build more. Things like that are happening. Always keep me going.
Cole Premo: Any future political aspirations you could tip us off to?
Rick Haaland: No, I’m pretty much, I’m pretty much glad you know where I’m at. Somebody was teasing me about running for the state, the Chairman Fairbanks of White Earth called me. He’s a good friend of mine. He said, “I’m going to put your name in that hat.” And I said, “Don’t you dare. It’ll be the end of our friendship. [Laughs.] I’m happy where I’m at. Leave me alone.”
Cole Premo: I thought I would ask.
Leah Lemm: Well, Rick, can you say a little bit about like, what keeps you motivated? What keeps you going? With your work, whether it’s with the county or with pets?
Rick Haaland: I want better for everybody, for my family, for my grandkids coming up, a better place, taking care of of this earth. You know, it’s all got to play in harmony. I was a logger for 12 years, worked for a fellow. That was the worst job of my life. It bothered me every day what I was doing, but I had to make a living, take care of my family. Finally, one day, I just couldn’t take it. I said, “I’m done. I gotta walk away from this.” It was playing really hard on my health. And I think part of it was also concerned about what I was doing. Left there and went to work for a guy for 15 years and bought a business from him. And I did that for a while, and then the COVID pretty much killed my business. So, you know, I waited a long time to do the job I should have been doing 40 years ago. Pets for Life. I wish I could have been this a long time ago. That’s for sure. Because I love it. It’s every day. They can’t talk to you, but they sure can show you love. And that never quits, no. Even the ones you pick up that are…it’s a bite dog. “You got to be careful.” This and that. It’s just like a human. They acted out because they got put in a bad spot, and so they protected themselves. We’ve had them in there that you thought they’re going to let them out and they’ll kill you. But after a few days, been learning they can trust you, everything’s fine. We don’t have issues with that stuff. And I have two people who work in my shelte. A young lady who started two years ago was phenomenal. She’s in vet school. Now she’s doing her pre-stuff to be a vet. She just graduated from high school last year. She’s a shining light for me. I just like to promote everything she does and help her. She travels with me a lot. She went to Las Vegas with me so she can make those connections. She can network and the people that can help her along the way. And she’s doing really good at that, yeah, just lots of stuff. So I’m always here. If you have information, you’ve got issues, you want to ask questions. You guys are always welcome to call and I’ll do what I can do to help you wherever you are.
[sound element: Native Lights theme music]Leah Lemm: Awesome. Rick Haaland. What was the name of his dog that went wandering?
Cole Premo: Drifter.
Leah Lemm: Drifter. Hey, give it up for Drifter.
Cole Premo: Appropriately named, yeah. Just great to hear, you know, his work helping our animal relatives, and clearly passionate about what he does. Looking forward to hearing updates on that wellness center.
Leah Lemm: Leech Lake Animal Wellness Center.
Cole Premo: Very good. So thank you to Rick Haaland. He works at Pets for Life as a community outreach manager for the Leech Lake tribal police. I’m Cole Premo.
Leah Lemm: And I’m Leah Lemm. Miigwech for listening. Giga-waabamin.
Cole Premo: Giga-waabamin. Leah Lemm: You’re listening to Native Lights, where Indigenous voices shine. Native Lights is produced by Minnesota Native News and AMPERS with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
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