Nancy Werhane and Spamela Anderson. COURTESY
Spamela runs alongside Monte, one of Werhane's Dalmatians who has passed away. COURTESY
Werhane and Thomason also have donkeys and horses on their farm. COURTESY
Nancy Werhane is crazy about animals.
"Some of us are just always the crazy animal lady," she said. "And that's me."
The co-owner of Pooches - which provides day care, boarding, grooming and training for dogs - says that she's loved animals ever since she was a kid. She was the child who adopted the chicks after the science experiment.
Now, she and her partner Jim Thomason live on a farm south of Tulsa - which they call Tails You Win Farm - that has practically turned into a rescue haven for dogs and farm animals.
Perhaps their most interesting rescues are Spamela Anderson and Jerry Swinefeld, a pair of hogs that each weigh about 800 pounds now.
They adopted Spamela, now 11, from a shelter as a piglet. And they took in Jerry Swinefeld from a pig rescue organization after he was attacked by dogs.
"Everybody asks me how long pigs live and nobody can answer that question because most people eat them," Werhane said, laughing.
They've also taken in a mule, Ferris Muler; a sheep; several donkeys, including Harry Ass Truman; a retired racehorse who was injured on the track; and a horse that has a disease that makes him uncoordinated.
"We have probably more worthless livestock than any farm," she joked.
And one particularly strange rescue is Rover, a black and white California King snake she took from the Tulsa Animal Shelter.
"He was cold and hungry, so I just told them I was going to take him," she said.
She's had Rover for about 15 years now, and Werhane says he's a "happy dude."
Werhane and Thomason also rescue dogs. Thomason is an architect, and he built the house with the dogs in mind.
They foster the ones they are able to find good homes for and keep the ones that need to stay because they are old or are not able to find homes.
Their home can easily house 20 dogs, Werhane said.
"And I could care for them properly," she added.
Werhane jokes that she'd probably be really rich if she didn't have so many animals to care for.
Then she reconsiders, saying "But maybe I'd actually be really, really, really poor because we have so much fun."
Part of the fun is naming the animals, and Werhane said she and Thomason sometimes hold contests, asking their friends to come up with names.
But most of all, Werhane said they are just happy that they can provide a place for some animals that probably would have been euthanized otherwise.
"They give us back so much more than we give them," she said.
