From birds to deer to hogs to kangaroos, 2024 was eventful for city’s animal control

When talk turns to animals — ducks, geese, hogs, deer, skunks, snakes and even kangaroos, in addition to dogs and cats — names like Jack Hanna or Steve Irwin or Marlon Perkins may come to mind.

In Sequoyah County, prominent animal advocates are Dr. Paula Haraway and Vickie Wyman.

Through the years, and 2024 was no exception, Haraway and Wyman have encountered some unusual circumstances and animals that are more than your garden-variety dogs, cats, horses and cows.

“We’ve done some strange things this year, like we have had a couple of hog reports where we’ve gotten a couple of hogs, and then ducks,” Wyman said, looking back on 2024. Wyman, an animal control officer for Sallisaw, has also encountered skunks, snakes, deer, a hawk that was injured when it was hit on the highway and was stuck in the grill of a truck, and even exotic birds.

“It’s crazy some of the stuff … people think it’s just dogs. It’s not just dogs,” she said.

And Haraway recalls a call “a few years ago about a goose at Casey’s. It ended up in a rodeo act. They also respond to calls on snakes in town, anything in city limits, people with skunks in their house. There’s just a lot more to it than what people think.”

But among the most unusual incidents involved some unlikely fine-feathered friends and a well-traveled white-tailed deer.

“We had two love birds and two parakeets jumping down the middle of the street over on McGee,” Wyman said of the foursome taken to the Sallisaw Animal Care Facility. “Nobody ever claimed them, so we adopted them out. But it was odd for two love birds and two parakeets to just be hopping down the middle of the street.”

And while deer are not uncommon in eastern Oklahoma, the story of semi-domesticated escape artist has kept animal control officers on their toes.

A young buck whose antlers had been cut off and wearing a collar, has been spotted all around the county. In mid-November, it was reported near Badger Lee. The next day, it turned up on East Taylor Drive before being tranquilized in the 2200 block of Osage Street. It was taken to Dr. Gary Cox’s veterinary clinic, but escaped captivity.

“Then a guy on North Madison opened his door to let his dog out, and the deer came in and laid down on his couch,” Wyman said. “I guess he thought, ‘Deer season’s going on out there, I’m going back to town and lay on somebody’s couch until this hunting is over with’.”

Animal control again took the young buck into custody, but the four-legged Houdini is on the lam for a third time.

While Wyman and Haraway were not involved with a peculiar mid-March incident involving an Australia native, sheriff’s deputies did respond to an incident in which a kangaroo was killed when it bounded onto a rural highway and into the path of a passing vehicle north of Roland.

Dogs days

Wyman said the Sallisaw Animal Care Facility took in 220 dogs in 2024, with 80 returned to their owners, 94 adoptions and five sent to rescue at facilities in California, Colorado and Illinois.

As 2024 drew to a close, there were 23 dogs at the shelter.

“It’s lower than we’ve been in a long time, but we’ve had several adoptions just in December,” Wyman said. “We have actually gotten up to having 32 dogs, and we only have 14 kennels. So when you only have 14 kennels and you’re still getting dogs in, you have to see who’s going to get along with somebody, because somebody has to have a roommate. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.”

“Nationally, all facilities like that are seeing huge increases. There’s a huge crisis right now,” Haraway interjected.

“It’s a small town,” Haraway observed. “A lot of dogs when they’re out, they know exactly where they belong.”

“It’s funny how many dogs we know on a first-name basis — the dog, not the owner,” Wyman said. “A lot of dogs you’ll know them so well, that you’ll open up the door and say, ‘Get in, whoever,’ and they’ll just jump in the truck. There are some of them that are regular enough you just call them by name and tell them, ‘Get in’.”

For the 80 that were returned to their owners, some had microchips implanted that helped identify the owner. “Chips are by far the easiest ways to identify the owner,” Wyman said. “But not everyone will do it. We’ve been offering that free, and people still won’t do it. We can get a dog back home within a matter of hours if it’s chipped.”

Haraway, a veterinarian who works in cooperation with the Sallisaw Animal Care Facility, noted that shelter personnel go above and beyond when caring for the animals.

“There’s a lot of personal time and attention that goes into what is always in the best interest of the animals down there. They are cared for wonderfully, but it is not a home. They are so much better off than those dogs chained to trees out in the county that supposedly have a home. They’re treated wonderfully at the shelter, but as hard as you try to pay attention to that many animals, it’s not the same as a good house,” Haraway said.

“Working together with them (animal care facility), Sequoyah Animal Advocates have vaccinated over 500 dogs through our clinics, and that’s with the help of Cherokee Nation and a grant through Petco Love that help sponsor that so that we can have minimal charges on those,” Haraway said.

In addition to what the city shelter has done for dogs, Sequoyah Animal Advocates has placed 79 dogs on transports to out-of-state facilities in 2024, and has arranged 19 adoptions.

Making a difference

Sequoyah Animal Advocates depends on the community, media exposure, local businesses, individuals and donations “to help make their lives better for all these animals.”

“It’s really difficult work for people who are doing it, like me and Vickie. Because we love animals, it’s an emotional roller coaster because you see the best in people who spend time with their animals and do everything right, and you see the worst. It just seems like the worst is what you see more of,” Haraway said. “And we need more rules, stipulations in our ordinance, state, local, all of that, to back us up so that we can manage the people who just refuse to do the right thing by these animals. We’re not trying to make a hardship on people who love their pets and already do the right thing, but there’s a huge discrepancy there for how animals are treated in our area.”

And dogs are not limited to how long they can stay at the shelter.

Haraway said dogs have been kept at the animal care facility “way over a year,” and Wyman recalls a dog that was at the shelter for 468 days, and another that was there more than 600 days.

“We don’t have hard and fast rules where they can only be here this amount of time. If we know they’re adoptable and they just haven’t gotten to a person yet, only cases of severe injury or really bad aggression do we ever not be able to keep them, because they’re a hazard to adopt out,” Haraway said.

“Dogs are as different as people are. Their personalities are as different as people,” Wyman said. “Some dogs can deal with that kennel life longer than other dogs can. You just have to take each dog individually, like Franklin. Franklin has been there almost five years, but he won’t go with anyone else. We sent him out on a transport, and he went on a starvation diet ’til we took him back. He’s now the mascot — we just say he works there. But that’s home to him. He wouldn’t be happy anywhere else. But then you’ll have some dogs that after 30 days you’re going to see a big difference in their personality, they just can’t take it. Kind of like prisoners, probably. Some of them can take being locked up, some cannot. We just have to play it day by day.”

Each dog gets out of their kennel every day for exercise. They’re also fed twice a day, and they have air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter, and their kennels are power washed every day “so everything’s nice and clean.” Also a new outdoor facility was added in 2024 — by Denise Fairchild in memory of her husband — to allow dogs to run outdoors.

Sallisaw Animal Care Facility continues to offer free registration and free microchipping.

“It would be a big help if everyone would do it. It saves you $30 per dog if you’ll just come and do it while it’s free,” Wyman said, noting that citations for unregistered dogs that are out and taken into custody are $196. “All they have to do is have an up-todate rabies vaccination to get their dog chipped and registered for free.”

While dogs are the main focus for the shelter, cats are not forgotten.

“We don’t have cats yet. We’re working on cat facilities right now, as we speak,” Wyman said. “It’s a small room, so we can fill it up the first day. The cats are so plentiful everywhere. What we’re going to need, though, is money put in the budget for spay and neuters.”

Two-legged animals are also a concern.

“We’re having a big issue with people talking about chickens, whether they’re allowed to have chickens in town. What nobody has said is, if you live in an ag zone, you can have chickens, you can have ducks. But if you live in a residential zone, you cannot. It’s not just city limits, it’s the zoning. That’s what needs to be stressed to people,” Wyman said. “It’s not that we’re necessarily against you having chickens, I don’t care. But I have to enforce the ordinance.”

A special person

Wyman then turned her focus to Kallie Henning, who has worked at the animal care facility for the past year.

“We have a young lady that’s working with us, she just turned 19 — Kallie Henning. She is amazing. She works through Onin [Staffing], she’s not hired through the city yet. In January she will have been there a year, and she’s hoping to get hired on through the city.

“She’s so good with those dogs. And she gets so attached to them,” Wyman said, recalling the holiday adoption of a puppy that was difficult for Henning. “The lady’s going out the front door, and Kallie takes off out the back door, because I knew she was crying, because she’d already gotten so attached to it. I said, ‘She’s got an amazing home, so you’ve got to know that what you’ve done with that dog has encouraged that lady to want that puppy. Be proud of the work you’ve done.’

“She’s amazing with them. She knows them all by name, she knows every habit they have. I can’t say enough good things about that young lady. She’s really good. She’s an amazing young lady. We would be lost without her,” Wyman said.

“It just takes a really special person to do the work that they do, because you have to love animals, and it can’t be just a job to work out good for the animals themselves,” Haraway added. “But on the other hand, you’ve got to be able to make tough choices. We have to make tough choices all the time. You absolutely cannot save every one. Some of them don’t need to be saved (due to social issues or extensive medical issues).”

While care for animals and adoptions are the shelter’s primary duties, Wyman pointed out that the animal care facility also offers pet cremations — “we stay busy doing cremations” — which comes with a laser-inscribed wooden box with he pet’s name on it.

Then Haraway asked for the community’s help in caring for animals.

“We encourage people, if they see something bad, call us and tell us about it. We can’t be everywhere,” she said.