To make my children pick up dog poo?

[FiveHoursSleep]

Our kids are expected to do various bits around the house/garden and one of the jobs is clearing the lawn of dog poo every day or two.
We have a medium sized garden and two big dogs so it needs to be cleared regularly. I do it sometimes but I ask my children to do it too.
I was telling another mum that this was one of the jobs my youngest DD does and she was horrified. She said it was a job for grown ups only as it was too dirty for kids.
Do you think I'm being unreasonable?
I get them to use bags on their hands and our dogs are fed a good quality food so their poos are easy to pick up. The dogs are regularly treated for parasites and the kids wash their hands afterwards. Our 9 year old does it, along with her older sisters but I don't ask the 7 year old to do it yet as he's a bit uncoordinated.
None of them mind, to them it's just part of having dogs. They'd rather do 'ostrich patrol' as we call it, than unload the dishwasher!

YANBU - it's a family dog. No-one wants to pick up dog poo. But if everyone does it, then it's fair.

To those YABUers... it's not "vile" having to pick up dog poo, it's not like you do it with your bare hands...! And also, what is the actual problem with kids doing it?

Agility is great fun isn't it? and it's great that your DDs are so involved with the dogs, so of course picking up after them is part of the responsibility of ownership.

If my kids clean the house, for which I pay them, (another debate) part of the job is cleaning toilets, should they be shielded from that as well?

Yanbu to have your children pick up the dog poo.
However, yabu to only clear the garden of poo every two days, it should be cleared up right after the dog has pooed.

YANBU normal part of caring for animals. My DD is four now and has been helping pick up poo ever since she could walk. She loves finding the poo first and makes great efforts to pick up the horse poo (in reality she just spreads it everywhere but she is enjoying herself).

I don't know, my parents never made us clean up the dog poop in the garden, only time we did it was on walks and we would rock/paper/scissors so the loser would do It! We were teenagers then, before we were not expected to do it at all. My mum saw it as an adult's job, I suppose so I see where your friend is coming from.

Boo...that is unhygienic why would you even let her?

No reason at all why they should not pick up after the dog.

My DD2 in particular has helped with this for years. She is 16 now, but has done it regularly since she was about 10.

They need to learn that there is work involved in looking after an animal. It isn't all a bed of roses. There are unpleasant jobs too and they are expected to do some of them.

The garden is de-pooed every day in this house.

Regina what do you mean? Which bit is unhygienic? She doesn't pick up any of it with her bare hands and when I say she spreads the horse poo everywhere I don't mean she takes it round the house! Obviously she spreads it round the stable on the way to the wheelbarrow. Horse manure is pretty harmless anyway.

My kids do it. They whinge but I just remind them of how much they pleaded to get a dog and how faithfully they swore to look after it, shitty jobs included.

As a pp said, if it was your dog and the kids didn't like it, ywbu but if it's a family pet, jobs should be shared in the same way all the nice bits of pet ownership are.

I love that you give the DCs a limited choice Ostrich Patrol v Dishwasher Unload. They make a choice, I can't see a problem.

I have a 6 year old, no way am I letting him clean the garden after the dog. Older than ten, I don't think it's too bad but even then I don't think I'll be passing the job on to him. Not really sure why but I see it as an adult job

Dh was made to pick up dog shit from a very young age. It was his job to pick up the dog shit every day after 5 dogs. He didnt even like the dogs. He was made to do this for years.

I can sympathise with this.
My mom and stepdad insisted that we always had at least 2 dogs at a time despite continuously giving dogs away as they didn't suit.
After being bitten several times by dogs I didn't like them and was afraid and hated being alone with them.

Yet it was never my parents who had to pick up the shit, it was muggins who didn't want the bloody dogs in the first place.

I picked up poo when a nipper, and chopped up the chicken carcasses.
DS did it from around 8 when I could trust him not to squeeze it is a massive part of taking care of an animal and if you don't like doing it you shouldn't have a pet.

It didn't put me off pets and DS now wipes 17yr old dogstacks arse

I had to do it from the age of about 10 or 11. My sister and I had nagged to have a dog so it was part of helping to look after it. In those days you didn't have poo bags, so we had an old metal seaside spade that became the poo spade - we had to pick up the dog poo with that, and carry it to a corner of the garden where it got buried.

Cariad that took me back, we used the coal shovel with a wonky trowel.

We still use shovels and scoops and that way everything goes on the muck heap. Much more environmentally friendly than the bags, although when out and about bags are easier.

I don't use bags I use a dustpan and brush(only used for this) into a bucket which I empty. it's not a job I would ask the dc to do, I wanted the dogs they had no say although they love them very much and come on walks perhaps i would feel differently if they had been the ones hankering for one.

I don't think it's a job for children. We have a dog and either me or my Dh clear up after the dog.

Mine clean the toilets too, why wouldn't they?
We use the Eco bags that degrade after about a week, but the poo does go in the rubbish bin.

I used to let our dog poo everywhere, nobody ever taught me to pick up. YADNBU.

It's perfectly reasonable to expect children to do this. My daughter walks our dog once a day for three days each week and is expected to pick up after him. He doesn't go in the garden, only on walks, but that's just his weirdness.