As Detroit's human population continues to dwindle, more pets are left abandoned as poverty in the wake of the Motor City's financial and political collapse causes thousands to leave behind their homes and animals, Bloomberg reports, with as many as 50,000 abandoned dogs currently roaming the streets.
The abandoned dogs take shelter in the countless abandoned buildings of the bankrupt city, with only four animal control officers available to help clean up the mess, down from 15 in 2008. Nearly ten years ago, Detroit's population also took a staggering nosedive from 1.8 million to 700,000 people. Over-filled animal shelters and strays terrorizing neighbors are just some of the issues plaguing the city.
"With these large open expanses with vacant homes, it's as if you designed a situation that causes dog problems," Harry Ward, head of animal control, said to Bloomberg News.
According to Amanda Arrington of the Humane Society of the United States, the high number of strays signals a humanitarian crisis, a form of symbiotic suffering between human and animal.
"It was almost post-apocalyptic, where there are no businesses, nothing except people in houses and dogs running around," Arrington said of her visit to the Motor City in October of last year. "The suffering of animals goes hand in hand with the suffering of people."
On July 18, Detroit, former auto industry powerhouse, declared municipal bankruptcy, with more than $18 billion in long-term debt and an operating deficit of nearly $400 million.
When home owners abandon their properties and leave their pets behind, Arrington explained the dogs are left to roam free and reproduce, further contributing to the overpopulation of homeless pets. Ward explained that Detroit's three shelters take in about 15,000 animals a year, though there an estimated 70,000 vacant buildings providing a makeshift form of shelter for the stray dogs.
Seven days a week, Ward and his four officers don bulletproof vests to shield themselves from possibly angry homeowners, roaming the streets to collect strays with the help of only one dog bite investigator, operating on a budget of just $1.6 million a year.
"We are really suffering from fatigue, short staffed" and working over-time, Ward said in a recent interview. The streets are dominated by pitbull and mixed-pit strays, according to Ward, due to widespread dogfighting in the suffering city. Abused animals means more aggressive dogs, prone to attacking mailmen and other pets.
Ed Moore, a Detroit-area spokesman, told Bloomberg News that it is a "persistent problem," and mail carrier Catherine Guzik explained that she carries pepper spray to protect herself from swarms of vicious tiny dogs in a southwest neighborhood, deeming it "Chihuahuaville." Strays, left to fend for themselves, often roam in packs.
In July, Detroit's animal pound had to stop accepting more animals for an entire month because the city had not paid a service that hauls away the bodies of euthanized animals, costing about $20,000 a year. The pound's freezers were gruesomely packed with animal carcasses, the live pens overflowing until the bills were paid.
According to Ward, more pet owners need to be educated on how to properly care for and look after their dogs. Kristen Huston, who leads the non-profit Detroit office of All About Animals Rescue, told Bloomberg News that she often walks through some of the city's poorest neighborhoods to talk to pet owners, sometimes offering them a free bag of pet food or a doghouse.
"Technically, it's illegal to let a dog roam, but with the city being bankrupt, who's going to do anything about it?" Huston said.
Click here to see photos of the stray dogs roaming the streets of Detroit and clogging the underfunded, overflowing local shelters.
