Stray Dog Drama in Detroit: Canceled TV Show Founders Are Still Fighting for Homeless Animals

A reality TV show about stray dogs in Detroit, canceled after officials denied the Discovery Channel permission to film, may still help the Motor City's needy canines.

In frustration at the decision by Mayor David Bing's film office, two of the filmmakers have continued the fight -- online, on the airwaves and onto the streets of Detroit.

Executive producer Monica Martino and location scout Dan Carlisle -- a local rapper known as Hush -- began by posting a short but shocking video about the problem on YouTube on Jan. 31, shortly after the city's refusal to grant the permit.

The four-minute film has since drawn more than 70,000 hits and the pair claim to have received more than $7,000 in donations to their newly created animal rescue charity, Detroit Dog Rescue.

Martino, who appeared on MSNBC to highlight the issue earlier this month, has quit her producing job to spearhead the cause alongside Hush. The pair held their first town hall meeting in Detroit on Feb. 27 and are now aiming to raise $50,000 to build a no-kill animal shelter in the city.

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored," they quote from English intellectual Aldous Huxley's writings at the start of the disturbing four-minute film, which shows stray dogs wandering the city and in one case resorting to a form of infanticide to survive.

"There are 50,000 dogs running loose in the city," narrates Carlisle. "The city doesn't want people to know there's a stray dog problem. But there's a big problem."

Carlisle then urges people to donate to their nonprofit Detroit Dog Rescue and to petition Mayor Bing over the decision.

The duo filmed the footage independently in January after learning the film office had rejected the cable network's plans for the 10-part series, called "A Dog's Life," focusing on the lives of strays.

"That day I was supposed to fly back to L.A. I was so frustrated and sad," Martino tells Michigan website mlive.com. "We just drove around before I flew out and filmed a bunch of stuff on my camera phone. It was complete and total frustration knowing there was a big problem in the city and we couldn't do some greater good."

The producers say the TV series would have raised public awareness of Detroit's strays and generated even more donations.

Mayor Bing's film office nixed the TV show despite the $1.4 million project qualifying for a $559,361 tax credit from the Michigan Film Office.

A representative from the mayor's office says the show could further damage Detroit's reputation and that the office had ethical objections to the producer's plans.

Sommer Woods, Detroit film office director, tells the Detroit Free Press about the dogs, "You're not rescuing them until you get what you need out of them. It's free labor; it's free talent. You film them, then you turn them over to whatever agency."

The mayor's office also disapproved of the producer's initial plans to attach cameras to the dogs.

"Putting a camera on a stray dog and letting it run wild through the city would be irresponsible, and we can't approve that," says Dan Lijana, spokesman for Bing.

Producers admit they had planned to put cameras on the stray dogs, but claim they had long since scrapped the idea. They believe the decision is solely about the city's tarnished image.

"I know that Detroit is changing and nobody wants to see their city represent a national problem," says Martino, a well-connected producer whose TV credits include "Whale Wars" on Animal Planet and "Deadliest Catch" on Discovery. "There's a stray dog problem in every major city in the U.S. that's had an economic decline. I don't believe that sweeping it under the rug is the way to go," she adds.

Carlisle says their quest for a TV show on the issue is not finished and they plan to continue their efforts to rescue Detroit's stray dogs.

Tags: a dogs life, animal shelters, dave bing, Detroit, detroit stray dogs, discovery channel, homeless dogs, reality tv, stray dogs, youtube