AIKEN – To the many families and dog lovers attending, Woofstock 2026 at the Aiken County Animal Shelter exhibited a wondrous menagerie.
Children and even some adults gazed in wonder at the lemur being carried around and the small collection of animals visiting from Eudora Wildlife Safari in Salley. The exotic animals visited in a fenced-in area behind the shelter, adding more animals than just the usual dogs and cats to the property. The lemur was carried into other fenced-in areas.
Mark Nisbit, owner of Eudora Wildlife Safari, said, the black and white rough coated lemur, is the safari’s ambassador and brought the animal for educational purposes.
Nisbit said not all exotic animals are wild per se. He strongly encouraged people to engage in conservation efforts for exotic animals and to adopt from the shelter and support it as his business has.
Nisbit brought other animals including a baby camel, a Scottish highland calf, goats and other animals that wowed the crowd.
Lisa Killian, an Aiken real estate professional attending Saturday’s event, said she enjoyed seeing the camel.
‘I do not think I have ever seen a baby camel,” said Killian.
Killian and her family members are animal lovers – once breeding dogs on their farm.
Serving as one of the event-judges was Betty Ryberg, wife of former South Carolina State Sen. Greg Ryberg, shelter contributor, and volunteer foster for four years.
“Every dog we have fostered has been adopted,” Ryberg noted.
She allowed Angus, the first-place winner in the kissing category, to give her puppy kisses.
Deb Croissant’s Mexican hairless, Besanti, won in the “So Ugly, I’m Cute” category and placed second in the Best Kisser category. Croissant, a recent Aiken transplant from Griffin, Georgia, also brought along her other dog, Dixie, to the event.
The Terrific Trick category win went to Finn, a wire fox terrier owned by Nikki Woods. He played dead and also stood on his hindlegs and held the position.
A small breed black dog named Kingston won the lookalike contest with his owner Hillary.
First place for the costume contest went to Dorothy dressed as a homemade football, second to Zoey dressed as Malibu Barbie, and third place to Jenny, dressed in a kimono.
Downtown Dog of Aiken, a vendor at the event, provided large glass apothecary jars full of homemade treats for the contest winners.
Throughout the day, Karen De Camp and others from Palmetto Dog Club brought their canines and did agility and basic training demonstrations.
“Dogs are just like people; they are individuals”, remarking on how they responded to their training, etc., she said.
She noted that for the course in the agility demo that each dog is introduced to each obstacle separately during training. Then, the obstacles are then placed all together on the course for the dogs to tackle doing.
Vendors, including Flanigan’s Ice Cream and Aiken Balloon Creations among others, provided donations.
Through the help of many regional vendors, large gift baskets were raffled during the event to raise money for the shelter.
Carl and Holly Brown from North Augusta, who said they recently adopted a female seven-year-old short-haired mixed breed, looked at the baskets at the start of the event with interest.
Carl Brown said they were going to bring their new adoptee, but she was still a little skittish.
Some shelter dogs can be skittish, but many learn to adapt. Some just do it more quickly than others like Girlie, a three-year-old mixed breed, who has been at the Aiken County Animal Shelter since Feb. 19.
She had been listed as shy for quite some time, but she behaved in a friendly, outgoing way with visitors during the recent visit.
The event had many other chances for people to visit shelter dogs.
The Gautreux family from the area had a good time at the Kissing Booth visiting with Winnie, a mixed 10-month-old breed available to be adopted at the shelter. She gave them many kisses as they crouched down to visit her.
Author and veteran journalist Ron Baxley, Jr. is working on releasing an Oz holiday story collection this year and has been promoting a WGA-registered Southern T.V. series, “Progressively Gr-80s”. His fantasy and Oz books can be found at regional bookstores, comics and gift shops. His other columns and stories can also be found here: Ron “Teek the Oz Geek” | Substack .
