DETROIT – While Detroit may be a great place for people to live, it can be a very cruel place for dogs.
The city is overwhelmed with unwanted dogs. In August, Detroit Animal Care and Control took in 790 unwanted dogs -- a new record.
Detroit officials said they have so much on their hands that they don’t have time to enforce a law against dog chaining. The law says heavy chains are illegal, and dogs cannot be tethered for more than three continuous hours when using lightweight tethers.
The law is clear, but the city does not enforce it.
The Local 4 Investigative Team found a dog on Detroit’s west side confined on a heavy tow chain on Verne Avenue. After returning hour after hour throughout the day, the dog was found chained in the same spot.
It’s a dirty secret -- dogs chained and forgotten in our neighborhoods where our children play, but city officials don’t want to talk about it.
Melanie Thomas and Chantal Rzewnicki have seen what life on a chain does to a dog. They donate dog houses and legal dog tethers to dog owners, but as a nonprofit group, all they can do is make the lives of dogs living on chains more comfortable. They don’t have the authority to enforce the city’s law.
They call themselves the K-9 Animal Rescue Emergency Networking System (the KARENS).
“We call ourselves the good KARENS,” Rzewnicki said.
The Local 4 Investigative Team went along with the KARENS as they checked in on dogs on Detroit’s east side. There’s one home they’ve been to many times before, but this time, the KARENS became angry.
There’s a new dog on the property. That’s a violation of their assistance agreement with the family.
“Why did none of these dogs have any food or water?” Rzewnicki asked “Water at the bare minimum. This is an upsetting situation, I’m not going to lie.”
The KARENS contacted the owner, who admitted that all four dogs on the property are chained up 24/7.
A rottweiler’s chain was tangled into a fence and another dog’s collar had severely injured his neck.
“Because it’s so tight on his neck that it becomes embedded,” Rzewnicki explained. “So what happens is once it opens up it just rubs and rubs and rubs.”
The injured dog’s name is Luck and the owner agreed to give him up to the KARENS. He ultimately had to be euthanized.
“It’s a sad reality,” Rzewnicki said. “It never ends.”
The KARENS ended up building kennels on the property for the dogs to use. They said they’re keeping a close eye on them.
Related: Detroit Animal Care at capacity, adoptions needed
It didn’t take long to find more examples of dogs confined on chains throughout the city. Detroiters are upset. It’s not the kind of neighborhood environment they want.
In just a few days, the Local 4 Investigative Team found two dozen dogs chained up in Detroit. Most were illegally confined on heavy chains and others were on lighter chains but had no shelter, food or water -- which is also illegal.
Local 4 producers returned to four different dog locations throughout the day and found the dogs still chained up past the three-hour limit.
Enforcing animal laws is the city’s responsibility. Lori Sowle, the interim director of Detroit Animal Care and Control, said her department is so busy that enforcing the city’s dog-chaining rules is up to the public.
“You have to have your eyes on for three hours straight. Then once you do that, and you give us a call, we’ll come out and write a ticket that you have to agree to go to court to be a witness,” Sowle said. “Because you can’t enforce if you don’t want to witness and most people don’t want to witness.”
A week before the interview, Local 4 contacted Detroit Animal Care and Control and reported four of the violations they found. Producers reported that two dogs had been chained up all day with no food or water in sight, but it took a week before city officials went to investigation.
The department didn’t issue any tickets for violations of the three-hour rule, even though producers returned again and again and found the dogs chained to the same spot.
“We don’t see the dog for three hours,” Sowle explained. “I think we have to re-word the law. I really do. The way it’s written, it’s not really enforceable.”
And that’s the problem with the law. Unless someone is camped out for three hours watching uninterrupted, how do you enforce the law?
Local 4 reached out to Detroit City Council members and Mayor Mike Duggan for comment, but no one was willing to go on camera.
Officials with the Detroit Police Department said they refer all animal calls to Animal Care and Control, so they do not get involved in animal crimes.
More information on The KARENS can be found on its official website or on its official Facebook page.
You can watch an extended video on Karen Drew’s ride-along with the KARENS in the video player below.