The Pooper Scooper - Please Use it to Pick up Your Dog Poop

I want to share my thoughts with you today about certain irresponsible dog owners who clearly don't own, or at least don't use, a pooper scooper. You see there are some owners who don't seem to consider the impact their pet can have on the world around them, or if they do, they  just don't care.

I'm talking about the dog owners who allow their pet to defecate on public footpaths, pavements, even children's playgrounds. I have even seen dog mess balanced on top of an unfortunate homeowner's front garden wall. Not a pleasant thing the have to deal with when you return home from work.

Dog Poop is Annoying

Like any normal person, I have always thought that dog owners who let their dogs do their business on public thoroughfares were inconsiderate or downright ignorant. However, since I became a father, my level of tolerance for such things has taken a sharp nosedive.

You see, from time to time an adult might accidentally step in a dog turd that was lurking on a pavement. This doesn't happen all that often because grown ups have learned to keep an eye out for such things and generally manage to avoid them.

Kids on the other hand seem to seek the damn things out!

The scene is an all to familiar one. We're walking along, having a nice day out when, all of a sudden a dog poo appears on the path in front of us. The younger members of our party fail to notice the hazard and step right in it, making a complete mess of their nice new, otherwise clean, shoes.

Until you've spent three consecutive evenings scraping dog excrement out from between the treads of your children's boots with a small stick, you have no idea just how irritating this social problem is.

My kids have, at different times, managed to walk dog mess all over the inside of my car, across my kitchen floor, and they have even fallen on the ground where a dog had done its business and got it all over their hands and clothes. When you're out for a long walk and nowhere near any toilet facilities where you could at least attempt a cleanup, that really does try your patience, believe me. It's enough to make you wish you hadn't got out of bed that morning.

Dog Poop is a Health Hazard

And it's not just an unhygienic nuisance, this stuff can do some serious damage to your health.

A friend of mine used to play rugby with a guy called "Boggle-eyed Jim". Why was he called "Boggle-eyed" Jim, I hear you cry?

Well, he was playing rugby one day when he landed on a dog pile that someone had left right in the middle of the pitch and Jim was unfortunate to get some of the squidgy brown stuff in his eye. The eye became infected and caused permanent damage, which gave Jim a squint.

So from that day on he became known as "Boggle-eyed Jim".

A sad but true story of the impact a lazy dog owner can have on an innocent member of the public.

What to Do About Dog Poop

I have noticed a few ways that people who are as outraged by the dog poop epidemic as I am have gone about trying to tackle the problem. The first is direct action. I wouldn't recommend this because it can turn nasty, but I have seen people physically attack a dog that was trying to take a dump. This is wrong on two counts. First of all, it's not the dog's fault. The dog is just doing what the dog needs to do. What you really should do is very politely ask the dog owner whether they have noticed that their dog has made a mess. Sometimes this can provoke an angry response, and sometimes it is perfectly clear that the owner saw everything, which makes this approach redundant. When this happens, you can offer the owner a poop bag if you have one. A simple plastic bag will do, it doesn't need to be anything special. If they are a responsible owner, they will at this point say, "Thank you very much". And proceed to clear up the mess. If direct action is not the sort of thing that you feel you should go in for, and I know that in certain neighborhoods you really shouldn't go asking people to pick up dog mess because they might pop a cap in your derriere, then there are other things you could try. I have come across little flags neatly placed in dog turds to mark them out clearly and draw attention to them. I have also seen "sprinkles" that would otherwise be put on top of ice cream adorning dog mess on an urban street. Other options that have crossed my mind include luminous yellow paint to highlight the location of the offending articles, following the offending owner home and posting a plastic bag and a note through their letterbox asking them to go and clean it up, and posting the locations on Google Maps. You can call me obsessive, but I think that all dog owners should be issued with a pooper scooper, and attend a training course in how to use it before being allowed to take a dog home from the store.