'A People Problem'

Summary

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Navajo Nation: Regaining lost ground

TRADITION, GEOGRAPHY COMPLICATE THE JOB OF ANIMAL CONTROL IN THE VAST NAVAJO NATION

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Extract

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'A People Problem'

Mike Halona knows how it looks to people passing through the Navajo Nation. Hungry, mangy dogs pace the parking lots of reservation towns. Dead dogs lie beside the highways that crisscross the vast reservation.

With such conspicuous evidence of overpopulation, abuse and neglect, Halona doesn't blame people for thinking ill of the way Navajos treat their pets. But, as director of animal control for the reservation, the Pohatchee native is determined to make a better impression.

Tradition and geography complicate his job. So do tribal members who refuse to take responsibility for their animals, he said, and non-Navajos who take...

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