While some of her work involves treating dogs, one of Holm's principal tasks is to enforce a July 2004 law insisting on more humane treatment for the animals.
For Holm and her new assistant, this means heading out into Greenland's dog yards and making sure the canines are properly treated — a tricky task, considering many Greenlanders warn visitors not get too close to the animals "unless they want to lose some fingers."
Dogs are an essential part of the hunting and fishing which make up the town's two primary occupations.
And although she estimates that 70 percent of the animals are often not treated correctly, Holm says she understands that the dogs' needs have always come second to the livelihood and survival of their owners in this harsh climate.
If Holm deems a dog to be poorly treated, she can order it to be brought in for treatment or, in extreme cases, put to sleep.
"You're sitting there with a half-dead dog on your lap and wonder how the owner can do that," she said.
But the owners "look at them as working dogs and often think they shouldn't have feelings for the dogs and that the animals shouldn't be spoiled, that you should not give them too much love," said Holm.
Otherwise "they couldn't be a good pulling dog. That's the main rule."
Hunters use the dogs to search for musk ox, reindeer and other wild species that are some of the staples of Greenlanders' diets. And fishermen continue to use dogs to head out onto the frozen ice and haul their catch back to town.
A hunter who loses a dog in the wilderness will still make it home with the rest of the pack, while a hunter with a broken-down snowmobile may very well die with the average temperature here in January and February dropping as low as minus 20°C (minus 4°F).
