It’s no secret that the city of Detroit has been continuously dealing with the blows left by the 2008 economic collapse. Once home to about 1.8 million people, the city’s population is down to about 700,000, and the once-bustling Motor City has more than 70,000 vacant homes and businesses and owes more than $18 billion in long-term debt.
As residents struggle to survive, let alone get back on their feet, one member of the Detroit family has been left to fend for himself: Fido.
Though news of a stray dog is tragic in itself for animal lovers, news reports estimate that the city of Detroit is currently home to 50,000 stray dogs. However, animal-rights advocate Monica Martino of Detroit Dog Rescue told NBC in 2011 that the number of stray dogs was probably closer to 100,000.
“A lot of people have lost their homes, lost their jobs and they just don’t have the funds,” said Kristen Huston from All About Animals Rescue, which works to keep dogs in their homes or from becoming homeless. “They love their animals but it’s very hard to feed their own kids and family.”
Howard Fullerton understands this all too well. The Detroit resident says he lost his home to foreclosure and had to leave his 9-year-old pit bull Coco behind when he moved into an apartment with relatives.
“She’s been in our family for nine years, since she was six weeks old,” he said, explaining that he left Coco in the garage of his foreclosed home with a sign that said “Dog is not abandoned. Coming back.”
Fullerton said he feeds her daily, saying, “The heartbreaking part is when I come walk her and spend a little time with her and leave, she just cries and whines.”
While it’s hard to imagine 50,000 or more stray dogs roaming the streets of Detroit, the claims have been backed by numerous animal groups and news organizations for years. But some like rapper Dan “Hush” Carlisle, who started Detroit Dog Rescue in 2011 with Martino, say that the exact number of stray dogs in the city is an arbitrary figure that should not receive too much attention.
“Whether we have ten dogs, 100 dogs or 50,000 dogs, there is definitely a problem and that needs to be addressed,” he said.
Though the stray dogs include dogs of all ages, sizes and breeds, a majority of the stray dogs are pit bulls or breeds mixed with pit bulls, since dogfighting has been prevalent in the city for decades and pit bulls are generally more aggressive when it comes to mating.
Some of the stray dogs hang out in packs of about 20 and live in boarded-up homes. Detroit Police Officer Lapez Moore reported that the city’s animal-control unit recently found a group of dogs in a flooded basement. “The dogs were having a pool party,” he said. “We went in and fished them out.”
Stress on animal shelters
Amanda Arrington is the director of the Humane Society of the United States’s (HSUS) Pets for Life program, which raises money to get pets vaccinated, fed, spayed and neutered. Recalling a recent visit to Detroit, Arrington called the amount of stray dogs roaming around in Detroit “post-apocalyptic,” saying, “The suffering of animals goes hand in hand with the suffering of people.”
She said that pet owners who were forced out of the city most likely hoped their neighbors would care for their canine companion, but in reality those abandoned dogs ended up on the streets — and reproduced.
Harry Ward is the head of animal control for the city of Detroit. He added that some dogs were intentionally left chained to vacant buildings by their owners, hoping they would ward off thieves.
Detroit has three animal shelters, two of which are nonprofits, that have the ability to take in 15,000 animals each year, including strays. But since the city is short on funds, Ward said his dog control unit has been forced to make cuts, just like the city’s police and fire fighting units.
Ward said he now has $1.6 million a year and four officers to patrol the 139-square-mile city. In 2008, Ward had 11 more officers and four dog-bite investigators — he now has just one.
“We are really suffering from fatigue, short staffed and work too much overtime,” he said, adding that the officers bring in about half the number of stray animals now than they did in 2008.
In July, the city’s pound stopped accepting animals for more than a month since the city hadn’t paid its annual $20,000 bill to remove euthanized animals from the pound. As a result, the freezers were overflowing with carcasses of euthanized animals while the pens were overfilled with living animals.
Overwhelming amounts of animals in Detroit shelters is not only an economic issue but a space issue. Local shelters say they are forced to euthanize about 70 percent of all the dogs that are brought in because they can’t accommodate all of the animals.
While Huston says it’s illegal to let dogs roam the streets, she said no one is going to do anything about it because the city is bankrupt. In order to prevent even more dogs from ending up on the streets, she said she walks throughout some of the poorest neighborhoods in the city and talks to pet owners about how to best care for their animals and hands out bags of food and sometimes even a dog house when she can.
Carlisle said Detroit is filled with people who want to be responsible dog owners, but added, “They just need something to get by. They don’t want to have to choose between themselves and the dog.”
“If I had unlimited funds, I’d offer free spay-and-neuter programs,” Carlisle said. “There are a lot of low-cost programs. We’ve done it ourselves, but low-cost doesn’t mean people can afford it.”
Dog attacks
Though most of the dogs appear to have had some contact with humans, Ward said there are a few feral dogs roaming the city streets.
Last year there were more than 900 dog bites reported in the city, which helped Detroit rank number six on the 2012 list for cities with most dog attacks in the U.S.
Ward also shared a story from earlier this year regarding a female Detroit resident who was sitting on her porch when she was attacked by two stray dogs, who ended up tearing off her scalp. The aggressiveness of the dogs has forced the U.S. Postal Service to temporarily stop delivering mail to neighborhoods where aggressive dogs are known to live.
Ed Moore is a Detroit-area USPS spokesman. He said that from October 2012 to July 2013 there were 25 reports of mail carriers being bitten by dogs in Detroit, and added “It’s been a persistent problem.”
Catherine Guzik is a mail carrier in a southwest Detroit neighborhood. She said that she carries pepper spray to keep smaller dogs away and referred to her route as “Chihuahuaville.”