Why it matters
Detroit has made real progress, but there is work to be done.
Here in Detroit, kids and dogs share the same blocks. Most of our children meet a dog every day: a pet, a neighbor's dog on a chain, a stray in the street. Few are ever taught how to greet one, or what to do when one runs at them.
Detroit has worked at this for a decade, and the trend has improved. Calls to animal control are down nearly a third since 2023. The city's own 2024 review found the tougher dog laws had reached their limits, and pointed to something enforcement cannot do on its own: teach people, early, how to live safely and kindly alongside dogs.
This page lays out what the record shows, what has moved the numbers and what has not, and where a classroom program fits. Detroit Hearts & Hounds runs that program: a K–12 humane education curriculum, about 45 to 60 minutes a year, funded so schools carry no cost.
Current as of September 2026
What the record shows
In 2025, our neighbors filed 863 dog bite reports, more than two a day. Children are the most likely to be bitten. A study of emergency room visits here found that more than half of American children are bitten by a dog before age 12, most often in the hours after school.
The wider trend has improved. Calls to animal control fell from 69,803 in 2023 to 47,650 in 2025. Detroit hired more officers, opened a call center, and cleared thousands of the vacant buildings where loose dogs shelter. The same bite study found that bites track with neighborhood conditions, vacancy and blight, and that where those conditions improve, bites tend to fall.
Care is not evenly within reach. Eleven of our 26 ZIP codes have no veterinary clinic and no pet store, and the neighborhoods with the most bites often have the fewest resources to prevent them.
A pattern that has recurred
We have seen bite numbers fall before. Around 2018, after demolition and board-up programs, reported bites dropped by about a third. Within a few years they had climbed back.
Enforcement and response lower the count without changing what produces it. They also do not reach the dogs that never generate a call. The one surrendered when rent is due. The one chained in a yard for years. The ones left in Rouge Park, where rescuers were still finding dead dogs in May 2026.
What animal control is set up to do
Detroit Animal Care and Control operates on a $7.5 million budget, with roughly 20 officers, nine trucks of which about six run on a given day, and hours of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Chicago, four times the size, spends a comparable amount.
The department is built to respond, to an escaped dog, a bite, a surrender. Its public education, where capacity allows, is mostly about the rules: licensing, vaccination, tethering. Enforcement also carries its own costs. Between 2020 and 2022, Detroit police fired at dogs 100 times and killed at least 74, well above the rates in nearby cities.
What research points to
Research on stray dog populations, including work with the University of Leeds, finds that catching dogs and holding them in shelters does not shrink the population over time. It does not touch why dogs end up loose. What does help is fewer dogs abandoned, fewer left to roam, and steady spay and neuter.
Those come down to how people are taught, early, to care for an animal. Calgary's model, which the city's 2024 review calls among the most effective anywhere, is built on community education and school programs. That review recommended a strategy focused on owner behavior, 'through education and outreach.'
One caveat, plainly: there is not yet a study measuring what a program like this changes here specifically. That kind of evidence takes years to build.
Where classroom education fits
A humane education unit teaches a few things at once. How to read a dog and stay safe. How to meet a dog's needs so it can stay in its home. How to find a dog a new home rather than leave it behind. How to see an animal as a life, not property. It runs about 45 to 60 minutes across a school year.
For a school it also does familiar work. Empathy, responsibility, following through, taught around an animal children can picture. Students who stay with the program take part in supervised shelter shifts, helping dogs get ready for adoption.
Detroit Hearts & Hounds provides the curriculum, the training, and the materials, funded so schools carry no cost. Schools host the lessons, funders support the classrooms, and shelters give students somewhere to put it to use.
A note on a number you may have heard
You may have seen the figure of 50,000 stray dogs in Detroit. It comes from one 2013 news story whose own reporter opened by doubting it, alongside estimates that ranged from 20,000 to 100,000. A 2018 review arrived at a similar number with no method shown. There is no reliable count. For that reason this page relies on what the city records directly, its calls, bites, and budgets, and on published research. Every figure here is dated and sourced below. 1112
Sources
- David Whitaker, Legislative Policy Division. "Evaluation of the Dangerous Animals Ordinance and Emma's Clause." City of Detroit, February 28, 2024.View source
- Detroit Animal Care & Control, "Monthly Metrics" (June 2026 report). City of Detroit General Services Department. Figures cited are full years 2023, 2024, and 2025. New reports are posted monthly on the DACC Animal Control page.View source
- Reese LA, Vertalka JJ, Wilkins MJ, Pizarro JM. "Demographic and urban environmental variables associated with dog bites in Detroit." Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 254(8):986-995, April 15, 2019.View source
- Reese LA, Li X. "Animal welfare deserts: human and nonhuman animal inequities." Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 10:1189211, July 11, 2023.View source
- Laura A. Reese. "When people are under economic stress, their pets suffer too." The Conversation US, June 25, 2024.View source
- Annalise Frank. "Detroit's stray dog problem has gotten worse. Here's what you can do." Axios Detroit, December 20, 2023.View source
- Karen Drew and Kayla Clarke. "Assistant Detroit police chief responds directly to rising number of dogs killed by officers." ClickOnDetroit / WDIV Local 4, May 1, 2023.View source
- Erika Erickson. "Deadly dumping ground: More dead dogs show up in Detroit park, rescuers demand help." ClickOnDetroit / WDIV Local 4, May 18, 2026.View source
- FOUR PAWS International, with the University of Leeds and IZSAM. "The STRAYS Project," August 10, 2022.View source
- Andrew Ramos. "As Chicago's animal control department is understaffed, police left to respond to calls." CBS Chicago, August 27, 2024.View source
- Mark Memmott. "Detroit's Stray Dog Epidemic: 50,000 Or More Roam The City." NPR, The Two-Way, August 21, 2013.View source
Learn more or get involved
Detroit Hearts & Hounds provides standards-aligned humane education for K–12 classrooms in Detroit, at no cost to the school.