About 70 miles east of Reno, near the small farming and ranching community of Fallon, is a site known as the “dead-animal dump.” A necessary feature of the local economy, the dump is the place where dead cows, horses, sheep, coyotes, and family pets are disposed of. Such places are rare now, but were once common throughout the West. Since the late ’60s a network of trenches has been dug and filled in a small sandy mound in this high desert valley of northern Nevada. You drive your pickup onto the mound and dump your dead animal. A single trench is always open. In summer, the stench is thick as