50,000 Stray Dogs Roaming the Streets of Detroit

Detroit.
 
It’s a place you may have heard of. Especially now with it declaring bankruptcy, Detroit has become the lazy punch line for those who don’t know what they are talking about. The dynamics that lead to its current situation are both beyond this blog post as well as beyond my (or probably anyones) full comprehension. 

But what I am quite certain of is that on a summer night downtown, the tiger game letting out, and the booming of fireworks still echoing in the air and the bars spilling into the street, that the city is alive and electric.  The theater district in Detroit can match anyones.  Wonderful Cultural pockets like Mexican town and  Greektown live amidst the squalor. There are bars with character, museums with history, a youth movement filling up newly renovated lofts and new businesses filling downtown office in record numbers.

What you hear about Detroit may be the truth, but it is the most dangerous of truths: half truths.

Of course there’s incredible blight and areas where it looks like a bomb went off.  The phrase ‘war zone’ is overused to the point of cliché, but it often fits.  Those pictures you see are real.  The grittiness of Detroit made for the settings of both of my first two novels. STRAY takes place in an animal shelter near Detroit and The Jade Rabbit in a runaway shelter on the outskirts of Detroit in an area known as Little Saigon. Both are actual locations where I worked for many years.

And now we hear the news that there are Fifty Thousand  STRAY dogs roaming the streets of Detroit.  50,000. It’s being reported by major news sources everywhere including Bloomberg.

50,000 STRAY dogs?  Can that be right? This is a number I have to question.  This is one of those exaggerations that is so easy for readers to believe since it’s a jigsaw piece that fits so well into a stereotypical puzzle. I can’t prove it’s wrong, but as the Detroit Free Press reports, this number would mean 360 dogs every square mile. Break it down further, that’s 36 dogs every block (consider a block a tenth of a mile).  There’s got be a stray dog on everyone’s lap, at which point, they are no longer STRAYS but have an owner. 

 Dog-fighting certainly occurs in Detroit (STRAY includes a visit to a Detroit dog-fighting den) and as a social worker, I’ve spoken with a mother who feared stray dogs on her street.  I also spent time helping out in Detroit’s Michigan Humane Society and saw a freezer full of stray pet body bags that had been euthanized.

But many dogs and cats were also being adopted and walked out the front door with new, loving families. 

An article like this evokes images of packs of wild dogs roaming the streets like an apocalyptic movie scene.  Imagine Cormac McCarthys’ The Road meets the movie Suburbia. 

A child plays at the Detroit River Walk. Certainly he's at risk from the packs of wild dogs roaming nearby.

There is an organized plan for a count of Stray Dogs to take place in September. If the count somehow confirms this 50,0000 number to be true,  I will be amazed.  I’m betting it’s half that. This is still an incredible number of suffering animals.

But chances are Detroit is not what you think. Run the Detroit marathon and you will see it’s beauty. The ghost of a better city is still roaming the streets but not yet dead. All of us have been strays at one point in our lives, and Detroit is certainly one right now.  But don’t believe what you hear, this town has lots of heart, you just got to poke around and be surgical in your strikes to find some incredibly rich city experiences.

Or perhaps we could believe it is a fact that 50,000 STRAY dogs are roaming the streets of Detroit. Yes, let’s go with the story as truth.

50,000 strays. All of them hungry, feral, and roaming the street. Survival of the fittest means only the vicious survive, and they’ll certainly have to feed off a pedestrian or two each day. They reproduce, as dogs tend to do, with litters of 3-4 pups a piece. That’s 150,000 strays in a few months, 500,000 by Christmas. A million hungry Detroit STRAYS are bound to spread like the killer bees were supposed to from the south and kill and eat everything in their path.  Someone call the DrudgeReport and let them know. The dogs are all very dark and viscous looking, so will certainly get a top story and large photo on their website.

So, when you hear about these things, think twice. Or, in other words:

Ask not for whom the STRAYS roam, they roam for thee.

WHAT UP DOG?

Visit an Animal Shelter of Detroit- STRAY

Visit a Runaway Shelter of Detroit– THE JADE RABBIT

Third 20 Miler Done - Hasa Diga Eebowai

My third 20 miler for the Bayshore marathon is done.  Painful and hard, and my training has been such that I had no idea what to expect, but then again, that's kind of why we do this.  The run was at a slow pace but some of my faster miles were in the later half. As always, the long run tapped into parts of me that regular runs never do.

It was 71 degrees and sunny. We skipped spring, and ran into summer it seems. I took a usual route, a 4 mile run to 8 Mile, then a 4 mile loop down 8 mile, out and back to my makeshift aid station of water and gu and S-caps under an evergreen tree. Only problem was, today they were pouring new cement on all the major sidewalk curbs, so I had to run around construction workers and avoid the wet cement.

Some random thoughts:

One More Day from the Les Mis soundtrack is a great playlist opener.

Paint It Black by The Rolling Stones is a great running song. So is Man Up from Book of Mormon and the song Hasa Diga Eebowai, which is not only a great song, but ended up being my mantra.

(What does Hasa Diga Eebowai mean? Whatever you do, don't go googling it, you'll regret it, please don't, don't... You did it anyways! Ahhhhh!  Don't judge. Context is everything, go see the play before you condemn me)

KT tape on my legs got me some looks.

Miles 1 to 7 of a long run feel harder than miles 8 to 14. That was when I was in my sweet spot.

I don't like Chocolate Mint Gu. Wanted to throw up.

I become the incredible hulk at about mile 16. Not one but two drivers didn't bother to yield when I fully had the right of way. I stopped in the street full of raging testosterone and yelled "Hey, Red Light!!!: and when the next car turned into me,  I yelled into his open window, "And you too Fucker!".  Yes, it's true, and I'm a little bit ashamed.

"Hasa Diga Eebowai"

Also, just because someone raises their hand, they may not be waving to you. They may be smoking a cigarette.I waved back anyways, they puffed out smoke.

Accountant looking people in suits will give you looks when you are singing out loud.

When you are running, you can't tell how loudly you are singing out loud.

Your brain will tell you that your body can do less than it can, and the trick is not to believe it. No, that's not my thought, I read it somewhere, but it was what I thought about as I ran.

Eminem has gotten me through so many tough moments on runs. I'm a lukewarm fan of his on most days, but on a long run day, I'm a groupie. Maybe it's a white-man angst thing. 

Now it's time to ice that incredibly aching spot in my knee and rest up and taper like a Mo'fo.

Video below from the musical. Rated R.

An Ear Bud In Each Side Of My Skull

One element of my runs which I am sure improves my time is bringing along my Ipod for the ride.  This point was driven home during my last half-marathon when my Ipod froze up just as I was walking through the chute to the start line.

Music makes me run faster, makes my runs more meaningful, and I am now dependent on ear buds to make me go forward.  Yes, if given the choice to run a 20 miler with no water or no music, I would have a decision to make.

I understand the trend to run “naked’, i.e. with no electronic gadgetry, and how it can make you mentally stronger. Well, I have done a 20 miler on a treadmill with no TV, no headphones, and no other stimulus besides a wall in front of me, and did not feel mentally stronger, but in fact, a bit more stupider-er.

Distancing yourself from others during the event and distancing yourself from yourself, are two other points.  But even with my headphones on in an event, I can still hear the crowd, and more importantly see their faces, feel their presence,and feed off of their energy.  And the music, I feel, makes me connect more closely with myself. While I run I am never very social anyways. Sure, before I run I will talk to anyone in the chute or the expo, and if I see you with an event t-shirt on I feel it's an invitation to say hello, but during the process I don’t like to be bothered.  

And so I have learned to love running with music.  Most any songs I listen to can be divided into those that are either on, or are not on, a running playlist. Some music I love just doesn’t translate to running, and some songs I find motivating while I run I would never listen to at any other time of the day. (Even though I fancy myself a hipster, my playlists are just as likely to include some songs from Glee, Journey, and Bon Jovi, or the soundtrack of Les Miserables.)

Music is such a personal experience. It is as personal as religion or politics, so to discuss your own tastes and expect it will touch and impact another in the same way would be to discuss something less than what music is.  For me it’s the intensity and richness of life personified, the volume of your internal world turned up, your insides made outsides and given a voice.  Music is listening to sounds that recognize the experience in you, and when my brain is intensified by running, the music is intensified as well.  The beat of the music mixes with the beat of  my feet and the lyrics mix with the whirlwind of joy spinning through my head. 

The first time I decided to use my ipod during an actual race was at the Chicago Marathon, back when it was not allowed, but if you looked around, this rule was rarely followed. A handful of folks always had ear buds sticking in each side of their skulls.  I bought a cheapo mp3 player (for some reason I was terrified of losing my real one, even though it had served me just fine for a million runs) and my big decision was to carry it in my pocket and clip it on at mile 20. It was going to be a final push, the motivator to make it to mile 20 and the wind to carry me home.  Mind games, I was playing with myself, and ended up popping it on at mile 18 and wish I had worn them the whole time.

The key is a great playlist.  A happy, ready to charge song out of the gate, but nothing with too fast a cadence since the beginning is about saving energy, and then some casual tunes to dissociate to, and finally, some energy producing, soul-charging songs to carry you through the finish.  For long runs, I sometimes actually use an hour long podcast to keep it slow and smooth in the beginning, followed by a specially designed playlist that picks up the pace over the miles.

My favorites songs I pop in there twice, and it never fails that, during a good run, music helps my spirit transcend even farther, magnifies the run and its place in my life experience.   

When talking isn't enough you need music, and when walking isn't enough you need running, and when you put the two together it's great chemistry

Rather than bore you with my list, here are just a few outtakes from songs that are well known.

--Most played first song on my marathon playlists:

'Running Down  A Dream' – Tom Petty

“it was a beautiful day, the sun beat down… I put the peddle down, to make some time.”

--Dorkiest Song on My Playlist

‘Now or Never’ – High school musical soundtrack. This whole song is about making meaning out of just 16 minutes of your life, and how you will be remembered by this moment. Well, tacky as heck me places the song about 16 minutes from the supposed ending of the marathon.

--Most inspirational song:

“Lose Yourself”  Eminem - a statement to the doubters, a song that builds with rage and immediacy like your heartbeat through the run. It doesn't hurt to be running the Detroit marathon, with the smell of Eminem in the air. And isn't a marathon just one shot, one opportunity? because if you blow it and "let it slip" away, chances are it will be many, many months or a year before you are back in the starting line. "So here I go is my shot, feet fail me not, this may be the only opportunity I got..."

--Fav songs for their Running Beats:

Rear View Mirror and Go by Pearl Jam always pick up my pace, along with many others.

And of course the obligatory Rocky soundtrack, but I follow it up with "Going The Distance" 

Florence and The Machine, Dog Days Are Over.  This song seems designed for intervals.

--Some other random odd ones

Fighter: Christinia Aguilera, or Survivor, that Beyonce group.  (but shhhh, don't tell anybody)

Hurt (either the Nine Inch Nails or the Johnny Cash version.)

Magic Power  Triumph

Pressure  Billy Joel

The Cave  Mumford and Sons

Back in the day, a friend of mine had an annual day long party (always on April 1st, hash bash in Ann Arbor) where he would play the entire Led Zeppelin collection. Every single song on CD, and this was certainly a marathon in its own rite.

So, I was thinking how an interesting way to run a full marathon with just one group on your playlist, just one, all of their songs.  I’m not sure who I would pick, but it would have to be something with an incredible beat, visceral with a screaming immediacy. Right now Florence and The Machine might be my pick of the day, although she may only have a half marathon of worth of song time.  (I am seeing Florence in concert this summer, and would certainly love to be in a treadmill while at the show, wouldn't that be something.)

Okay, if you're still reading and I'm not the only one here, I would love a comment about the song that fires you up, maybe something out of the ordinary since I have bared my soul.  Go ahead, no wrong answer.  Wham, Wake me Up before you Go Go... you say?  I can see that.

"The Jade Rabbit" - $3.99 on Amazon

Reviews of The Jade Rabbit

"STRAY", by Mark Matthews,- $3.99 on Amazon

 Reviews of "STRAY"