City of Strays: Detroit's Epidemic of 50,000 Abandoned Dogs
Dogs roaming the street in Detroit. Dante Dasaro Dogs roaming
the street in Detroit. By |  Not long after moving back to
Detroit, I stumbled across my first stray dog. This one was dead
– a female pit bull, white, curled on its back. I'd been taking
a walk in a depopulated industrial zone. The pit didn't appear
to have been torn up in a dogfight. In fact, she looked so
unharmed, I initially stopped cold, worried she might be sick
and ready to spring up. Just beyond the dog, the rusted skeleton
of a car, presumably stolen and abandoned, felt heavy-handed.
Oliver Stone, making a movie about Detroit, would have probably
said, "Eh. Let's lose the car. It's just too much." That's
Detroit, though. Everything has become overly heavy symbolism,
the initial purpose of things having, for the most part, faded
long ago.  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 w