Some dogs are house pets and some are strays. Then there are the unfortunate pooches who find themselves homeless because their owners live on the streets.

Pudgy the dog has no home because he was found and adopted when he was three weeks old by homeless Detroiters Tim Taylor, 54, and Renee Lundgren, 48, whom Taylor calls his common-law wife. They’ve been together 20 years, the last few spent living on the street.

Their perch is an island of concrete and grass at the junction of I-94 and Livernois on the city’s southwest side. Taylor’s usually there with Lundgren, a cardboard sign and the 3-year-old chocolate lab, begging money from passing motorists. The pair cover the dog with several blankets when they’re outside. At night they sleep in an empty warehouse nearby.

“I got a little partition of wood this high,” he says, hand at waist level. “When we get cold we can go over here and light a fire. I’ve got a cooler. I got a little mattress on the ground and that’s where I’m at. Me and my wife and my dog.”

Unlike dogs released by their owners onto the streets – collared hounds wandering with hangdog faces suggesting they know there’s a better life somewhere – this dog’s lived his whole life like this, so for him this life is normal. For all we know, when he sees wild dogs fending for themselves he might even consider himself fortunate that he’s got people to pet him and give him meals. And though some homeless people will feed stray dogs like they feed pigeons, few keep a dog with them at all times.

Like some other homeless folks, Taylor’s tale is long and convoluted, and has holes in it. He says he sold his home to move in with and take care of his elderly mother in Belleville. She died, they lost the house, then his job, then his car. Finally the money ran out and the couple found themselves wandering around Detroit. “It really sucks you know, coming from Belleville, living on the lake, to being here living in the corner of that warehouse right there,” Taylor says.

Lundgren can’t work. “She had a heart attack right at the bus stop,” Taylor says. “She almost died.” She’s been in psychiatric care for three years and needs medication. “I was in a coma so long that it damaged something up here,” she says, touching her temple. “I’ve lost part of my memory.”

They won’t go to shelters because unmarried couples aren’t allowed to stay together. “In the shelters they talk about how this is so much help; it’s just a gimmick for people to make money,” he says, shaking his head. “They pick you up in some absolutely isolated place at like 6:30, 7 at night, then they take you to this place, put you in a basement, give you a mat on the floor, right? And then boom – six o’ clock in the morning they take you back to this desolate place and say ‘Get out.’ So now you’re in the middle of nowhere. We went that route. Not anymore.” In the warehouse they get privacy and a place to go at any hour.

They think a few lucky breaks would set them on a course to normalcy. “It’s gonna take me a few more weeks,” Taylor says. “I hope to get back out and find work.”

Meanwhile, they stand on this island, with a gentle, fuzzy dog who’s still adorable despite his mangy fur and muddy paws. The sight of a homeless dog, it seems, draws a few more dollars than the sight of the bedraggled Taylor on his own would. But not enough to get them out of the daily cycle of beg and spend, so the whole family is back every day.

“I hope we can get on our feet,” Lundgren says, holding the dog. “I don’t enjoy this. I am not proud of it. I’ve never been like this and I never thought I would be.”