Have you ever woken up one morning and saw that all your trash was lying all over the place and wondered what happened? The only reasonable answer to this would be that a that a pack of rez dogs got into your trash and made a big mess with it. A rez dog is basically a dog that has no owner and is from the Navajo Nation (the rez). These dogs are running around with no owners anytime of the day giving people problems and disturbing their daily lives. The rez dog situation getting out of hand, and it has become a big problem.
Many rez dogs are roaming around in the housing interrupting people’s privacy and causing them many problems. Many people ask, “Why are these dogs doing this?” Homeowners could solve this problem in two ways: they could either take these dogs and own them, or they could go the bad way and haul the dogs away. Some people think doing this is cruelty to dogs. I did an interview and survey on this not too long ago, asking people whether they like rez dogs or not. You’d be surprised about the responses I got. Some people said that they didn’t like rez dogs and over 30% of the people love them. This proves that many people have their own thoughts about what they think about these animals.
You can get rid of rez dogs in a variety of ways, but people don’t want to do it because it could harm the dog, or it could take a dog’s life. People who are soft-hearted will most likely take the dog in and own that dog. Some people are really cold-hearted or just don’t like dogs in general that may do things like haul the dog away in the middle of nowhere, where the dog would have nowhere to go. This would eventually leave the dog starving and they would be desperate to find a place to go to survive. Sadly, they often don’t, so they end up losing their lives.
Most people don’t know, but these dogs can be very dangerous. They can seriously injure a human if taunted or abused. This is only because the dog has no teachings or discipline, they don’t know what’s right or what’s wrong, and they just go by their instincts. These dogs just do what they must do to live. The things they do can do may be aggressive, such as hurting an individual or getting into a fight with someone’s dog. For example, if you ever leave your dog unsupervised right after you just fed them, then it is possible that a hungry rez dog will come and try to take the other dog’s food, leading to them fighting over the food. These dog fights can last for a long time and can be very gory. So, these dogs can be dangerous and misleading.
The solutions available for controlling the rez dog population are very limited. This is because most people don’t put in the effort to try and help get rid of rez dogs, they are often busy and don’t have the time to try and get together as a whole to develop solutions for this problem. Many people don’t think of this problem as a big issue, but in reality, it is a big problem that will affect us later in life. So, it would be best and is highly recommended that we solve this problem now rather than waiting for the worst to happen to where we can never solve it, because it has become too late and out of control.
Then again, we can ask ourselves “is this worth our time? How would it affect us in life?” It’s really up to people to make the decision and put in the work ethic to find a resolution to this problem without harming people or the rez dogs. In the end, whatever the people choose to do will ultimately impact the people on the Navajo Nation who live in government homes like the housings here in Crownpoint.
There is no right or wrong answer to this situation and problem. But currently, there are over 10,000 or more rez dogs roaming around the Navajo Nation. When you think about this these dogs will keep on reproducing, creating more and more dogs on the rez. These dogs will always be here, and they are not going anywhere. People just have to deal with it and must live with it for the rest of their lives. I’ve offered solutions that could help manage the situation with these dogs, but it really depends on the type of person you are. Bottom line of this, there is no one solution to this problem, but as large as the rez dog population has grown, but unless there is drastic action taken, it may be too late, and we may just have to live with it.
