DETROIT – Animal shelters in Michigan are overflowing with animals and Detroit Animal Control is busy.
To encourage more adoptions they have waived adoption fees. While getting strays off the streets and into safe homes is important, sometimes it helps to prevent animals from being abandoned by providing owners with resources they need.
“There’s like 1.2 on average reported dog bites in the city of Detroit every day,” Animal control investigator Raymond Hoskins said.
He said their shelter has the highest intake of animals in Michigan. Hoskins and other investigators are working to be proactive instead of reactive.
“Picking up dogs just to pick them up doesn’t help in the long term,” Hoskins said. “We want to work together to solve the problem, you know, the big picture problem. We have to look at things like keeping Detroit dogs with Detroiters.”
It’s different for every owner. For some, like John Johnson, that meant simply getting a shelter for his three dogs, Mama, Big Boy and Little Mama.
“They (the dogs) means a lot to me in myself and the fact that the city, even takes a part in making sure that they’re taken care of makes me feel good,” Johnson said.
The volunteer organization, Friends of the Detroit Animal Care and Control Center, was able to raise enough money to give Johnson three shelters that typically cost $90 each.
“A lot of the things that they provide for is giving us things that people need -- dog houses are huge one, steel coated tie outs that replaced the big chains, that’s another big one. Dog food is a big one, you know, a lot of times, an underweight dog all you need is some dewormer,” Hoskins said.
Friends of Detroit Animal Care and Control Center are always looking for donations, for more information, click here.
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