Published: August 25, 2008 09:59 pm      

Shelter specialists provide care

EDMOND — As one of two shelter specialists with the Edmond Animal Shelter, Kristen Wilson helps visitors find a pet that will meet their lifestyle. The process can take multiple visits or hours with different animals in the get-acquainted rooms. Other times, it’s love at first sight. For Wilson, a favorite time in her day, she said, is when she “sees how happy people are with the dog or cat they get to adopt.”

Wilson said she also feels good about shelter work when she observes animals as they overcome obstacles to a healthy life with a new family.

Unwanted animals arriving at the shelter face a series of challenges in the process of becoming adoptable. Wilson and Dawn Little, also a shelter specialist, spend a lot of time caring for the animals as they go through the possible steps of intake, assessment, medical tests, treatment, vaccinations, neutering and spaying, socializing, sheltering and placement.

Both Wilson and Little have been at the shelter for less than a year, but they have been caring for animals since they were children.

Little said even though as a child she had dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters, what she really wanted was a horse.

“My father wouldn’t let me have a horse,” Little said. “He always said I would lose interest in a horse. I would go riding at stables or friends’ houses. When I turned 18, I bought my own horse.”

Little later got married and moved into the country where she had space for horses, cattle and pigs, in addition to her ferrets, hedgehogs, birds and cats. She worked at a ranch, opened a riding stable, and has been training horses for many years.

Wilson said she started studying animals, especially birds, when she got a parakeet in the fifth-grade. Her parakeet, Sunny, lived for 14 years. Her family also had dogs, including foster puppies. Wilson’s parents fostered puppies for the Oklahoma City Animal Shelter for 10 years, providing “new puppies every two or three weeks when I was in high school,” Wilson said.

Their interest in caring for animals continued into young adulthood.

Wilson studied for a year at the University of Central Oklahoma before going to Oklahoma State University, where she earned a degree in wildlife ecology. During her sophomore year, Wilson said, she volunteered at the animal shelter in Stillwater.

“I spent so much time at the shelter,” Wilson said, “I wasn’t spending enough time studying. I had to stop volunteering. I wouldn’t let myself go to the shelter during my junior or senior years.”

Their life stories begin to converge, with animal care continuing to be high on the list of their priorities. For example, Little said, “I always did fostering. At one time I was fostering nine dogs for the humane society in Wisconsin.” Little and her husband had been living in Wisconsin for a year and a half before moving to Edmond.

When both Little and her husband were laid off from their jobs, they looked into positions closer to their daughter, who is attending UCO.

“I wanted to work with animals. I was looking for the type of job where I could make a difference,” Little said. “I made the trip from Wisconsin to Edmond three times to get this job.” She began working at the shelter in June.

Following college, Wilson began training dogs for PetSmart, but said she continued to feel drawn to shelter work. After four years, a shelter specialist position opened in Edmond, and Wilson began work in October 2007.

Wilson said working with the support of really great people has been a big help to her. “On a difficult day, the people you work with can make all the difference,” she said.

Difficult days are common in shelter work. “The sad fact is there aren’t enough homes to give all the animals a home,” Little said. “We are making a huge improvement in the lives of many animals, though. To have a long career, you have to focus on the good that happens here.”



EDMOND ANIMAL Welfare has a third shelter specialist position open. To apply for this position, go to the city’s Web site at www.edmondok.com, and follow the link for employment with the city.