By Joy Hampton
July 2, 2009 — Rogers County has an animal control problem.
In municipalities across the county, issues and controversy regarding what to do with strays and unwanted animals rages on.
For example, in Verdigris’ Pond Creek neighbors are protesting the residential location of a privately run animal rescue organization. Catoosa has implemented an animal adoption policy through the city’s animal control department but finding homes for those dogs is not always easy and the city often turns to animal rescue groups for help.
Even our largest city has issues. Claremore faced a crisis when Tulsa quit accepting animals for euthanasia.
Perhaps worst of all, rural residents victimized by dog bites have little recourse beyond civil suits.
Virtually every small town in Rogers County has had its fair share of dealing with animal issues at one time or another.
Outside city limits, problems with strays, vicious animals, and unwanted dogs dumped in the countryside plagues the county. When citizens have asked the Rogers County Sheriff’s Department what to do, they have reportedly been told their only recourse is to shoot the animals. While those in housing additions are loathe to shoot even a threatening dog, ranchers protecting valuable stock have and do shoot wild or stray dogs.
Last year, Oologah Mayor Jerry Holland asked county commissioners for help, but the county’s hands are tied.
Counties with populations under 200,000 may not implement animal control according to state law. Attempts to modify that statute never made it out of committee.
Even amidst all of this controversy, nowhere have things grown more heated than in Inola, a town that tried, probably harder than most, to find a solution to the animal problem.
In 2006 Inola Mayor Cheryl Charles was dealing with a problem regarding approximately two dozen feral cats living in an abandoned house. In addition, the town’s animal control facility consisted of a couple of pens on city property near the sewer treatment lagoons. The limited town staff were not specially trained in animal control but did the best they could with Maintenance Supervisor Greg Boeckman taking most of the responsibility for the loose animals picked up and housed in the makeshift facility.
Charles and Boeckman said they wanted something better for the animals.
They called in Cynthia Armstrong of the Humane Society who drove to Inola and reported on guidelines and humane treatment to town trustees at one of the council meetings.
Charles hoped at that time to implement some sort of adoption policy. Most importantly, the town needed a real animal control facility.
In October of 2006, local volunteers offered to walk and help care for the dogs Boeckman picked up. Most times, those animals were pets who had gotten loose or lost and were recovered by their owners. The unfortunate few that were not claimed were taken to a shelter in Tulsa which either adopts them out or euthanizes them.
Inola volunteers wanting to save those animals formed IVAR, Inola Volunteer Animal Rescue, a non profit organization to help find homes for the unwanted pets.
“They came and asked if they could help,” said Charles. “They said they would come and build a shelter in the city limits and if anything ever happened it would belong to the town. It was a win-win situation.”
What evolved was an entirely different animal.
A combination of red-tape involving land use, personality clashes between Boeckman and IVAR volunteers, and a lack of funding resulted delays and disputes.
Temporary housing at an area business intended as a stop-gap measure for a few months turned into closer to two years. Eventually, IVAR built their facility on private property. And while that facility has been commended by local animal advocacy groups as one of the nicest in the area, Inola was left without an animal control facility as required under the law.
Charles said as soon as the IVAR facility became privately owned and inaccessible to city staff as required by law, “the win-win ended.”
“They weren’t offering what they offered to begin with,” she said.
A proposed contractual agreement between the town and IVAR had resulted in 29.1 hours of lawyer time charged to the city for a total of $1,440 in legal fees paid for by the town. In the mayor’s mind, any reason for the agreement was long gone.
Boeckman built a facility for Inola according to Humane Society guidelines and continues to care for the animals Inola picks up.
To Charles, the issue was finished. IVAR, like other animal rescue organizations in the county, would still operate as a third party shelter which the town would pay $35 per animal.
Inola only deals with one or two dogs a month, said Charles, and to her knowledge only one dog has been euthanized in the seven years she has been mayor. That was a dog with several attack incidents.
Inola does not euthanizes dogs at all. It is possible that some of the third party shelters used by the town have euthanized if a home was not found for the animals, however.
“The town is not licensed to euthanizes,” she said. “There are rules for how you euthanizes an animal.”
Charles added an agenda item to the recent council meeting to terminate the contractual negotiations with IVAR because in her mind a contract was no longer needed.
Town council meetings have been the site of heated debate over the animal issue for several months, and Charles has received a great deal of public criticism in the local press for ending contractual negotiations with IVAR. Charles said she hopes the town can continue to use IVAR as a third party shelter but that a contract is no longer necessary. She just wants the controversy and its associated legal fees to stop.
“The contract has really been the issue,” she said.
Inola’s animal control ordinance follows Humane Society guidelines.
Charles said she and Boeckman never intended for the occasional stray Inola deals with to become such a major issue for the municipality. The town has pressing needs regarding water, sewer, flooding, tornado sirens, fire department, and the public library just to name a few.
For animal issues to take up so much of the town council’s time is disproportionate, she said.
Monday’s town council meeting had a large crowd for the rural community, 34 people in attendance.
“About 80 percent of those were there about the dogs,” she said.
Critics say the issue is not over, and that they want the agreement back on the next council meeting agenda.
Charles remains hopeful that the issue is closed. She said she wants IVAR and the town to have a good working relationship which is mutually beneficial to both entities.
Rescue groups across the county struggle to help with the problem.
Zoi’s Rescue is called upon to take animals outside city limits.
“Just last week out in the county there were 20 cats and one dog in an abandoned house,” said Debbie Stellas of Zoi’s. “I’m not allowed on the property; I have to get the OK from the Sheriff’s Department to go on the property and seize the animals. They have to research it and make sure they’re truly abandoned.”
Zoi’s receives no fees from anyone in the county.
“The last nine months have been worse than the previous nine years I’ve been doing this,” said Stellas. She said more foreclosures means more abandoned animals. The downturn in the economy has resulted in fewer donations according to Stellas. Adoptions have also decreased.
“It’s peaks and valleys all the time anyway, but I haven’t had any peaks in awhile. It’s really been discouraging and frustrating,” said Stellas.
Catoosa Animal Control has turned to Rozlyn’s Hope Rescue in the past for help with finding adoptive homes, but the city has no formal agreement with the rescue organization and pays no fees to Rozlyn’s Hope. That rescue may have to shut its doors if a new location for the facility is not found soon.
