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2:02pm

An Underground Epidemic: America’s Wild Street Dogs

Are you aware of the enormous feral dog problem? This country has experienced an explosion in the number of dogs that are abandoned by their owners and exponential rise in feral dogs – dogs that are born, live, and die on the streets, never having been socialized to humans. The epidemic is recent - since the 1980s - borne of a lethal combination of vastly increased dog fighting, dogs bred for aggressiveness, and reduced animal control. It is not a local problem…it is a national tragedy.

The involvement of all of us in animal welfare is essential to solving this problem. Through sterilization and rehabilitation the feral dog problem can be contained, but first we must acknowledge its existence. • Feral dogs are the untouchables; they are the ones who "belong" to no one. They are the hold-outs, the animals under-funded pounds can't catch and overburdened humane shelters can't deal with. They colonize whatever neighborhoods afford them the best shelter, the most food and the least amount of contact with human beings. They exist, like genetic castaways, in the evolutionary no-man's-land between domesticity and wildness. They are completely, utterly, alone.