The Norman Animal Welfare Center has continued to push for in-facility structural and protocol improvements despite the city denying them financial assistance.
Rebecca Bean, co-chair of the Norman Animal Welfare Oversight Committee and volunteer, stood before the Norman City Council asking for financial support for two new employees and renovations in April 2022 but was denied before being approved.
“Anyone who volunteers at the shelter knows how desperately these positions are needed,” Bean wrote. “I had to get involved. I couldn’t stand by and let our shelter not receive the support it deserves.”
She wrote in a message to the OU Daily that she got into animal welfare after trying to foster a pregnant dog in 2013 before being turned away because the Animal Welfare Center didn’t have a foster system at the time.
“I couldn’t believe that Oklahoma’s third largest city didn’t have a foster program,” Bean wrote. “I made a commitment to help see needed changes through as soon as I found a home for the momma dog, who we named ‘Cita,’ and all her puppies.”
Bean wrote that the shelter has “always” been understaffed and underfunded by the city. Volunteers are an important piece for any shelter to thrive, she wrote, but participation fluctuates unpredictably.
“No other city department has to fundraise for paper towels, (and) you can’t run a municipal shelter on volunteers,” Bean wrote.
Some OU students have raised money for the Animal Welfare Center like Beta Theta Pi held a fundraiser and bought almost one of every item on their Amazon wishlist. Similarly, advertising senior Macy Reasor sold lemonade near the Price College of Business. Norman Animal Welfare Center Manager Kellee Robertson said she is grateful for how generous and kind OU students are.
“It’s fantastic,” Robertson said. “There’s the OU students that volunteer and then projects like (Beta Theta Pi’s), along with adoptions from students. They all help us. I can’t think of anything negative about having the students in our town.”
Robertson said Norman being a college town has helped clear the shelter on occasion as college students adopt cats and dogs looking for companionship. Sometimes students will surrender animals back to the shelter, but she said it’s not enough to cause any unease.
Second-year human relations master’s student Antonieta Hernandez said she’s only talked with the Animal Welfare Center when calling about injured animals such as a squirrel, a cat that appeared pregnant and a falcon.
Hernandez said she’s had nothing but positive experiences with the Animal Welfare Center. She said the animal welfare officers were always on top of the situation when she called and typically came to where she was instead of having her drive the injured animal.
“People that love animals care so deeply and I’ve been really lucky to find people that care for animals as much as I do,” Hernandez said.
As an international student, she said she’s started filling out paperwork to get her cat cleared to go out of the country with her as she plans to permanently leave the U.S. after graduating next May. In her mind, she couldn’t imagine her life without him.
“When I got my cat, I was going through a very severe depression and I thought something that might help me get out of bed and do the things that I don’t do for myself is having a tiny creature that depended on me,” Hernandez said. “I might not do things for myself, but I knew for sure I was going to do it for a creature that depended on it.”
Hernandez said it was then she adopted her cat, Milo, got him registered as her emotional support animal and the rest is history. Robertson said cats are by far the most popular among OU students and she’s glad so many students seek out the shelter looking for a friend.
“We personally don’t have any barriers (like age restrictions). … We are open adoption,” Robertson said. “Everybody deserves to have an animal in their life.”
The Animal Welfare Center has progressed over the last eight years as animal laws have improved as chaining animals was banned, the shelter made an official goal of not euthanizing adoptable animals and minimum requirements to protect animals were better defined, according to Bean.
However, she wrote around 40 percent of Oklahoma still has no animal welfare service, so she feels her work is not over.
“If you’re in rural Norman, outside of city limits, and you call the sheriff about an unwanted dog on your property, they’ll often tell you to shoot it,” Bean wrote. “That’s completely unacceptable to me. Until we figure out a partnership with the county, I’ll keep pressing for solutions for all of the animals in our community.”
Bean wrote the shelter’s leadership and staff have also massively improved over the past decade. She wrote it’s been “super fun” working with Robertson, who was hired last February, as Robertson has brought “productive change” to the shelter.
Specifically, Robertson has streamlined the vetting of volunteers. Robertson said what took longest was the background checks and the filtering of forms as their papers were processed with the rest of the Norman Police Department’s before any volunteers started orientation.
Now, she said prospective volunteers can go through orientation first to see if working at the shelter is right for them. She or the shelter supervisor then takes applications from orientation to the police department where they undergo the police department’s extensive background checks.
“It has made our ability to get volunteers totally through the process and on board probably 30 to 60 days faster than it was the previous way,” Robertson said.
Robertson said she originally worked for the shelter from 1994-99 as a volunteer before becoming a police officer with the Norman Police Department for the past 23 years. Robertson, however, said she knew her work would inevitably return to animals.
“I always knew I would go back into animal welfare,” Robertson said. “I had planned on putting 25 years in at the police department, but this job became open, and it’s not open very often, so I had to apply for it.”
She said the work of the Animal Welfare Center is constant and exhaustive even with everyone’s positive attitudes because one day they’re making progress on their numbers and then another group of dogs or cats are ushered in.
The final objective, she said, is to control the “ins and outs” of adopting and surrendering by convincing people to spay and neuter animals, which would theoretically stop the flow of unwanted animals.
Robertson said due to the shelter’s need for more permanent staffing, she recognizes how key volunteers like Bean are for the Animal Welfare Center to thrive. She said she values volunteers the same as her paid employees.
“We have volunteers that literally are like staff for us,” Robertson said. “They are here every day, eight hours a day, all day long. They do it out of the kindness of their heart, (and) we treat them like one of us and take care of them.”
Robertson said the shelter’s staff is what makes it a place she loves to work. These people, she said, fight for every single life going through the Animal Welfare Center and their right to prosper outside the shelter. She said that is what’s most important to her.
“I will argue all day long this is the best shelter in the state of Oklahoma,” Robertson said. “All of the people here maintain the best attitude about what we’re doing, and the work we do here is life-saving. It is absolutely the most important work I’ve ever done in my life."
This article was updated Oct. 24 at 11:15 a.m. to clarify that the Norman City Council eventually approved the Norman Animal Welfare Center's request for two new employees.
