Invisible people, invisible dogs

A Special Bond in a Time of Hardship

Hello,

I realise some new people have signed up to read my articles - so hello to you all and thank you!

Because I’m also studying for a PhD, publishing articles and blogs can be a bit sporadic, depending on my deadlines. In the meantime, here’s an article that I wrote for Dog International, a US based outlet focussed on all things dog related.

Whilst I was researching the subject of homelessness and dogs, I managed to interview the brilliant and tireless Michelle Clark, founder of Dogs On The Streets - a charity that provides vet services for homeless people.

Invisible People, Invisible Dogs was written for a mainstream, US, dog-loving audience, hence the style, explanations about British politics, and obviously - dogs!

Thank you for reading,

Tanya

Invisible people, invisible dogs

First published at Dog International June 25, 2018

Image description: a man and his dog sit on a bridge, in the rain, with people passing. The man covers the dogs head from the rain.

‘Dogs should not dream. They should never dream. The hand of a man passing me on the sidewalk accidentally brushes against my ribs and a memory comes back so fast that I can do nothing…it flattens me.’ John Berger: King, A Street Story.

My partner goes off to Oxford every couple of weeks for work, where he encounters many people sleeping on the streets with their dogs. I find myself worrying about them. The weather isn’t good, and heavy rain is forecast. He tells me they were fine. But by ‘fine’ he means the people and dogs were relatively healthy, all things considered. We live in a small rural town, where street homelessness isn’t so visible, but every time I visit cities the number of homeless people on the streets visibly increases.

I manage to speak to Michelle Clark about it, founder of Dogs On The Streets (DOTS), a charity working with homeless people and dogs and the first of its kind in the UK. She finds time to talk to me, in between various emergencies. Her strong rapport with rough sleepers is a huge bonus to her work. She says that she recently adopted a collie called Broc (short for Broccoli!) ‘as you do’, she laughs. His owner had died and a fellow rough sleeper tried to look after Broc but found it too difficult. Broc is fifteen and in great shape, but is taking a while to adapt to living in a house with a new owner after a life on the streets.

It’s likely that the rough sleepers that my partner meets are the same people that Michelle helps. Dogs On The Streets staff work across a huge area - all of London, Chatham in Kent, Oxford, Bournemouth, Milton Keynes, Dundee and Norwich.

In London, rough sleepers are more isolated and spread out, says Michelle, but in the smaller city of Oxford, people and their dogs meet up and are more sociable. This has some advantages for the dogs as well as for their people. Dogs who live on the streets are very well socialised, often meeting hundreds of different people every day who lean over them, pet them or accidentally step on them. In Oxford, they also become socialised with other dogs, having time to interact and play.

Image description: a dog calmly sits alone on a pavement, next to a sign, a bowl and the bags of its owner. People are walking by.

Homelessness on the rise

For seven years I worked in the mental health services, which gave me an insight into some of the related issues around homelessness. Life can be precarious, especially for people from low socio-economic backgrounds. One wrong turn, one illness, a couple of missed rent payments, a redundancy or marriage breakup and a person’s life can spin out of control, often resulting in loss of housing.

In Britain homelessness is rising. A mix of policies over the last decade or so, are adding to the strain. Housing benefit for young people is being scrapped, domestic violence shelters are closing, the foster care system is under immense pressure from public sector cuts and social care budgets are being slashed. At the same time, new social housing is not being built fast enough. My teenager recently asked me how much a house might cost in London and when I searched I was surprised to find a property valued at £20,000. A closer look showed us this was actually just a parking space! The average price of a flat in London is now over half a million pounds and rising by 7% each year. This is at the same time as salaries are decreasing in real terms, students are leaving university with high levels of debt and precarious zero hours work contracts are becoming a new normal.

Inevitably, against this backdrop people are increasingly becoming homeless. And when people lose their homes, so do their pets. What happens to these pets? Sometimes they are given away to friends, or to animal shelters, but often they end up living on the streets with their owner. Life on the streets can be dangerous and lonely for people. Michelle from Dogs on the Streets says that homelessness is often ‘a life of solitude for people — just a person, a rucksack and a sleeping bag.’ And sometimes their dog. The reasons people keep dogs whilst living on the streets are complex, and homeless people are often subjected to unhelpful judgements about their situation.

Dogs as family: ‘My Dog Always Eats First.’

Leslie Irvine, author of ‘My Dog Always Eats First’ begins her book describing how she unfairly judged a homeless man who was begging for money near a gas station. She tries to buy his dog from him, and is annoyed when he becomes angry and tells her to leave him alone; that his dog is just fine:

‘I thought he was doing something wrong. It was nothing I could put my finger on, no mistake he could correct. It troubled us that such a man had a dog. We felt sure he could not provide proper care. We believed that the dog could have a better life. For us that life would have meant four walls, a roof, and even a yard. For the young man on the median, a good life for a dog meant freedom, the outdoors, and constant companionship.’

Irvine’s book goes on to record the personal stories of homeless people in relation to their dogs. Whilst ‘dogs as family’ is a common theme in general, it takes on more emphasis in the lives of homeless people. For house dwellers a dog is another being that inhabits the family home. For people living on the streets however, a dog is a 24/7 companion and the bond is often closer. Home and family isn’t necessarily represented by a house. For a dog, whilst shelter from bad weather is important, a house is largely irrelevant.

The woman in the Channel Four film, Dogs on the Street: How four legged friends help the homeless, says of her dog: ‘People laugh at me, when I say she’s like my daughter.’ Another man, Andy, says of his dog Bailey: ‘More than anything it’s company, another heartbeat that’s on your side.’ What we see in the film are deep bonds between dogs and people on the street. As one of the vets says, the relationship between them, in comparison to home dwellers and their dogs, is ‘more complex, intense and profound.’

One recurring theme from the stories in Irvine’s book is that the dogs with rough sleepers are sometimes better looked after and happier because they are with their human constantly, unlike many dogs in houses who often experience separation anxiety. Despite the hardships faced on the streets, a dog with a homeless person often has more freedom and companionship than even the most pampered house dog. The man in Irvine’s book, responds to her:

‘I take good care of my dog. He has a great life. He runs around the forest all the time. He never has to be on a leash until we come here. He’s got food, he’s got water. He never leaves my side.’

According to Irvine, one reason for the emphasis on dogs as ‘family’ for homeless people is that dogs represent a degree of sociability and respectability. They portray part of a person’s identity. Having a dog with you says: look, I’m not an outcast. I’m a person who is approachable and has a relationship. I can look after another being. Dogs also enable people to be literally sociable. It’s easier to approach someone who has a friendly dog with them. Dogs are a talking point. A connection to the rest of the world.

It’s sometimes cynically claimed that rough sleepers only have dogs to beg for more money. However, weighing up that caring for a dog prevents all kinds of other benefits, such as access to shelters, food kitchens and shops, it’s hard to see how a dog really provides financial gain. The practical drawbacks of having a dog whilst homeless far outweigh the benefits. But the emotional benefits seem to outweigh the practical inconveniences.

Image description: graffiti depicting a homeless man and dog, wrapped in a blanket.

What are the drawbacks for dogs who live on the streets?

According to The Connection, a charity that works with homeless people, ‘dogs on the street are generally less healthy. It’s not the right environment for a dog. It’s busy, they don’t relax properly or get the same amount of exercise,’. However this seems to contradict other sources who say that dogs on the streets are more socialised and have more freedom than ‘indoor’ dogs. What constitutes ‘the right environment’ for a dog is pretty subjective. Is it a crate in a centrally heated living room? A kennel on a farm? A doorway in a city? A sprung mattress next to a human? A tent?

Michelle from Dogs on the Streets tells me that the dogs do face some particular health issues: dental issues because of their diet; pancreatitis, because of the human food they often eat, such as pizza or pasties that well-meaning people give them; orthopedic problems because the dogs and people are out in all weather doing a lot of walking. She says they can have higher anxiety issues because they may have to be more alert and protective. Being aware of this is vital for teams like Michelle’s who are out there with mobile veterinary surgeries.

However, despite these health drawbacks, the bond is usually strong. Michelle says:

“People on the street have taught me so much about dogs. Dogs will always follow their homeless person. People who live in houses are often having to chase their dogs — not homeless people — I’ve never seen a rough sleeper having to chase their dog down the street.’

The charities that do this vital work have to be able to connect with homeless people on their turf (so to speak). There are a few charities that offer free walk-in veterinary care for dogs, but it’s hard for a rough sleeper to go into a vet surgery and not have even the money to offer a donation. Stigma around homelessness means that dogs are not always getting the care they need. Charities like Dogs on the Streets help solve these issues.

Is hardship for homeless people and dogs an issue that can be solved?

Animal welfare and housing are two emotive political footballs in the UK right now. The two main political parties are competing to show they are concerned about animal welfare. The current Conservative government is planning to crack down on puppy farming, for instance, and the opposition party, Labour, is planning measures to make private landlords accept pets, unless there’s a good reason not to, combining the issues of precarious housing, animal welfare and rights to pet ownership. What’s clear is that, as housing becomes less secure, and people are forced to move from home to home, more animals end up in shelters.

I think all this leads to some uncomfortable questions for society to answer. The Connection say that they try to persuade homeless people to ‘rehome’ their dogs, (if they can’t find accommodation for both) but what’s clear from Leslie Irvine’s research, and Channel 4 footage of homeless people, is that people would prefer to live a more difficult life on the streets than give up their dog. Only 10% of homeless shelters accept pets, so many people are faced with a harsh choice.

If, as The Connection points out, most people on the streets have dogs because they already had a pet when they were made homeless, what role should society play in ensuring that people and their dogs are kept healthy and safe? And what right do we have to break the bond between people and their dogs?

Whilst it might be true that someone in crises might not be able to look after an animal - or themselves - properly, should they be helped and supported, or judged unfit and divided from their companion? These are difficult questions and they are more likely to be unfairly asked of homeless people. Abuse and neglect of dogs can go on unnoticed behind the walls of a house or the hedges of a private garden. Homeless people and their dogs are on display to the rest of society. They are simultaneously visible and invisible. Visible to judgmental eyes, but invisible in terms of their needs and their personal history. As the woman in the channel four film responds sadly, to the question: how did you become homeless? ‘It’s a long story.’

Making the invisible, visible, through true stories

Maybe telling these human (and dog) stories is part of the answer. Leslie Irvine says that lots of research has been conducted on human-pet relationships, but little exists about the bond between homeless people and their dogs. She says ‘A…reason for the invisibility of animals in the research on homelessness has to do with the historical failure of the social sciences to recognise the importance of animals in human society.’ Homeless people are not usually in a position to make their stories visible. Apart from a handful of people who caught the public’s attention, like John Dolan and his dog George, there are few who live on the streets whose voices will be heard.

TV and literature sometimes depict an over-romanticised picture of rootless, homeless dogs, as metaphors for freedom. Think the Littlest Hobo, Red Dog and The Call of the Wild. John Berger’s King: A Street Story is an exception, in its attempt to tell the story of homelessness through the senses of a dog, whose ‘home,’ a makeshift tent-style village next to a motorway, is demolished. And Leslie Irvine’s book and the homeless charities who are documenting the real lives of people and dogs on the street have a key role to play in helping shape attitudes towards people and dog relationships on the streets.

Perhaps, through these stories, the bond between a person and their dog will be viewed as important enough to maintain, even through devastating times. Maybe then, services will change accordingly. More shelters might become equipped to cope with dogs, like this St Mungo’s homeless shelter, and more housing providers might change their ‘no dogs’ policies, to become more animal friendly.

I ask Michelle one last question before she rushes off to her busy work: What’s the best thing to do if you see a rough sleeper and their dog and want to help?

“Ask them what they need,” says Michelle firmly. “It might be dog food or a coffee. Listen to what they say. They know what they need best. [Rough sleepers] can receive abuse when they aren’t grateful for the things people give them, but sometimes those things are not suitable. At Christmas someone might come and give a person five sleeping bags or something and it just turns into a burden because they can’t carry that much stuff. On a really hot day a couple of bottles of water are useful. People and dogs can get dehydrated in hot weather and may not realise. “

“Say hello and just ask.”

"All dogs dream of forests, whether they've ever been in one or not…In the forest I was carefree. I followed trails wherever they led, I ran between pines as tall as churches and jumped the bars of shadow, and when I was panting, I lolloped to the forest edge, where the girls spied and waited for men, and there I lay down on the grass.” John Berger, King, A Street Story.

Resources for Homeless Pets

Dogs on the Streets (DOTS)
https://www.dogsonthestreets.org/
https://www.facebook.com/dotslondon/

The Blue Cross
https://www.bluecross.org.uk/

My Dog is my Home
http://www.mydogismyhome.org/