The Strays
They weren't always the biggest problem but now that the city of Detroit has almost completely fallen they have become an issue in the rebuilding of what once was a great city. The city let the problem of the strays go on for so long that now it will be even more difficult to fix than it would have been if we hadn't let it come to this. We will explore how we allowed this problem to grow and ways we can work on fixing this problem.
The Good Old Days
Back when business boomed and money wasn't such an issue as it is today people went after what every american wanted, the american dream. everyone had their little families, houses, and off course their family pet. life was good, getting love from the family, eating table scraps with the normal kibble they'd get, having a nice home to sleep in and stay in. The stray dog population was incredibly small if not non existent and the ones that they did find were kept around until they were adopted because there was no need to euthanize them with all the room they had in the shelters. Animal Controls life was nice and relaxed because they had more employees than needed for such a low population of strays.
The Dog days
"Dear Ace, you came into my lobby, crouched behind my door and stared blankly at the wall, shaking. I could see your pain—I fed you, warmed you and you rewarded me by finally looking into my eyes, and for a moment, we shared your pain. I reached for the phone, thinking that I could find you a better life.. . . . Instead I sent you to your death. Please forgive me. You did not die in vain, nor will you be forgotten. This I promise you. Your last but far from only friend, Mark, Ace Hardware, Detroit, 11-10-11"~Reese, Laura A
As the Auto Industry started to crash and money became scarce, the citizens of Detroit had to start cutting back on their luxuries in life. One of those luxuries being the family pets they had once adored but now looked at as a burden and maybe something to eat. Some animals got thrown out immediately while others were held onto in a desperate move to keep things as normal as possible and not let a member of their family have to go out to the streets to starve. But ultimately they all suffered the same fate. Once white flight started and more and more people started to leave, some would just leave their dogs behind all together. the dogs, not knowing what else to do, would stay at the rapidly dilapidated houses until they were forced to move on. As more and more dogs began to appear on the streets, people started to figure out what was actually happening to the city of Detroit, all the collateral damage from one down fall, according to The New York Times, "Ninety percent of these dogs come from homes," says the leader of Detroit Dog Rescue. "The economic plight of Detroit made them too big a burden." This is when a problem was recognized and it was known that Detroit citizens had made their situation a whole lot worse then it needed to be.
More and More dogs joined the packs of strays that had started to run the streets. some of the dogs weren't neutered and that lead to mating which produced even more dogs then before. the population of dogs steadily grew as the people who were too stubborn to let their dogs go started giving up, having more go out to the streets,the The New York Times also said, "Estimates vary, but groups place the number of strays in the city at anywhere between 20,000 and 50,000. The latter number, which would mean 350 strays per square mile, seems quite inflated; still, there's no question the dogs are a serious problem. Detroit remains the poorest major city in the United States, and some residents who can no longer afford to take care of their dogs turn them loose, or else leave them behind when fleeing the city themselves. (Local shelters have a eu-thanization rate of 70 percent, so abandoning the dogs to fend for themselves might not even be, in some instances, the least humane of options.)" After the realization that there were so many strays, some people began to dive deeper into the causes of the sudden spike in stray dogs, the New York times also proclaimed, "Part of the reason the dogs have such free rein is that so many humans have left. In the last census count, Detroit's population had plummeted to just over 700,000, down from nearly a million a decade earlier. People are leaving because there are no jobs, and the school system is a mess, and police take a half-hour to show up when your house is shot up with an AK-47. The solution from Michigan's Republican governor has been to threaten a state takeover of Detroit if the city's leaders fail to enact more budget-balancing austerity measures, leaving a void that DDR has been scrambling to fill." With all the other problems going on its hard not to see why the strays could grow in population without much notice until it was too late.
Now that they had grown in numbers to a size that would be noticeable even in this crisis, people actually began to notice. The dogs terrorized anyone who got near their territory, took over abandoned houses, and just kept growing. it seems as though the citizens of Detroit need to see things to believe them and the dogs weren't afraid to show that they were there, and the New York Times said, "After that encounter, I began to notice the dogs everywhere -- a stray husky at an outdoor public-school rally, a pit bull running the wrong way down a freeway exit ramp onto 1-94. A friend casually mentioned that her mother now carried pepper spray on her daily walks -- not for protection from potential muggers, but from the packs of wild dogs she'd been seeing in the neighborhood. My friend Brian was chased by another pack while bicycling. Last April, Detroit postmaster Lloyd Wesley filed a letter of complaint with the mayor and police chief regarding the "perilous hazards" met by his employees in the form of pit bulls. Fifty-nine Detroit postal workers, Wesley wrote, had been attacked by stray dogs in 2010. That same year, New York -- a city with 11 times the population of Detroit -- had 10 such attacks." It seems as though the dogs are giving back what the humans deserved for throwing them out and deserting them out on the streets. It was becoming apparent now, as attack statistics grew, that this was becoming a bigger problem then they first expected and needed to be taken care of.
What now?
Spreading the word in this case is crucial. This is a not well known issue must gain support and popularity per say before any real issues can be solved. the more people know the more they can help and the dog population can be dealt with more responsibly. Detroit is trying to do just that with spreading DDR's mission and talk about the worsening stray population.
|
The government isn't doing anything more then keeping the animal control somewhat afloat. the issues that the public was having became so ridiculous that they decided to take it into their own hands, according to the book City of Strays, "More than 30,000 vacant houses and buildings, once homes for Detroit residents, are now havens for animals. Mr. McPhee said he planned to share the results of the survey to find a way to deal humanely with what has become a safety risk as the stray dogs breed, increasing their population while the city's human population falls." And he isn't the only one to step up. the famous DDR (Detroit dog rescue) is founded by a Detroit resident whose profession as a up in coming rapper. not really humane society material but that's not stopping him.
|
The Detroit Dog Rescue helps more then the actual animal control, City of Strays had this to say about them, "The department that handles dog complaints and rounds up strays had only six animal control officers at the start of the year, according to a report by police officials. About 1,700 strays are captured annually." without the DDR, animal control and the dog catchers wouldn't even be making a dent in the stray population. The police even call the DDR instead of their own government program because they know the job gets done cleaner and unlike their program, DDR is a no kill shelter.
Why Do We Care?
Why should we care about these animals? I mean the city is in ruins anyways and we should care about rebuilding the more important things first and helping ourselves before anything else right? well the stray problem actually does effect us more then you'd think. the thing about strays is that they have no one to care for them. they have no medical help and no human interaction. this means that diseases are spread rapidly through the dog population, according to the article, The Dog Days of Detroit: Urban Stray and Feral Animals, "Urban roaming dogs raise a number of serious risks to individuals and society: public health threats including increased exposure to dog bites and transmission of zoonotic diseases such as rabies and leptospirosis1; criminality related to dog fighting and animal cruelty; visible signs of physical disorder within neighborhoods; health threats to owned animals and urban wildlife; and humane concerns for the dogs themselves." these dogs are a threat not only to themselves but to the citizens of Detroit as well. these diseases are instantly passed to the next generation of puppies which there are plenty of because of the un-neutered strays just keep reproducing.
Packs of wild dogs roam around looking for something to eat and sometimes humans become a good target. since becoming feral they have reverted back to their instincts as a wild animal. going for the old, young, and weak, City of Strays interviewed a couple of the victims, "It does not matter to Jessie Clarke how many stray or loose dogs are roaming the ruins of Detroit. After she was attacked by two pit bulls outside her east side home in April, even one is too many. Ms. Clarke, 65, is not alone. Other Detroit residents complain that packs of dogs have terrorized various neighborhoods for years.", " About two months after Ms. Clarke was attacked, a teenager reported being bitten by three dogs that had escaped a yard.And loose dogs forced postal officials to suspend deliveries in a four-block area for about six weeks in 2007" this has become a real issue as you saw in the video, people are getting killed because of this. To deal with this new threat people has resorted to carrying weapons with them at all times outdoors, 'When taking my son to school, I have to carry sticks and clubs,'' Ms. Reese said. ''I don't know if they are going to bite or if they are hungry.'' The dogs not only are a danger to themselves but to people as well. So if you don't have the heart to care for these loyal creatures you can at least care for the people living in this situation.