To ask, if you don't pick up your dog's poo, why?

[BelleMarionette]

The streets here are littered with shit.

I have a dog and collect mine and carry spare bags to share too. I know it's not all that owners. I collect other poo too but can't do the entire neighborhood.

If you don't pick up yours, please tell me why, and what would get you to pick it up.

I challenged a woman yesterday whose dog shitted and she walked off. She still didn't collect it.

I'm wondering about creative solutions.

Fed up of mine and my kids shoes being covered by it.

I do believe some of it is cats too, so cat owners suggestions welcome too.

And before anyone asks I’m disabled.

Toss it in a river? That's revolting.

Everyone should be picking it up, even if in the countryside. As said by a few of us earlier, the nutrients in dog poo affects the balance of Nitrogen and Phosphorus and damages the ecosystem. The number of dog owners massively increased over lockdown and everyone needs to act responsibly. Dog poo takes months to break down. It's just sheer laziness to 'stick and flick' and as said previously, is no longer advocated by wildlife and nature organisations, so stop making excuses.

People can be quite anti social. Swearing and spitting on the street are dreadful too.

In Paris they encourage people to get their dog to go in the gutter and the street cleaners come along and gush water along the gutters.

In Spain they spray the streets with fire hoses to clean them (how they manage this in terms of water supply, I don't know, but it seems they find it important to be clean)

People who vomit in the street are also disgusting. If you are very unwell and are caught short at 3am, at least do it in the gutter, not up against a building. How is the rain supposed to clean that? I passed someone drunk at 10pm vomiting over a railing into a pedestrian underpass.

Back to dogs, of course there are fines, but who can enforce them, particularly if you don't know who left it.

Moreover, the question of grass vs pavement:

My toddlers like to run and play on the grass in public parks. When they fall over and get their hands and clothes covered in dog poo because someone felt it was OK on the grass, it isn't. It's just awful.

Reasons people don't pick up

• They are lazy, antisocial arses
• They can't be bothered to get organised and bring bags with them
• They don't notice because they are busy chatting instead of watching their dog

Haha, I always pick up my dogs poo except for one time……….

We were living temporarily in a town so I was taking my dog to a park next to some woods. There was another dog walker who I used to see regularly, who would get to the first bit of green and just exercise his dog with ball throwing. He never acknowledged me or my dog. That’s his choice obviously.

Usually we go through the first green (where a lot of kids play) fairly quickly and my dog usually poos in the unfrequented bits, but I still pick up.

But one day as we entered the green I had an urgent phone call from my teenage DD and I tarried longer than usual in this space. Just about to carry on and the unfriendly dog owner tells me my dog ‘done a poo’.

Because I’d been on the phone I hadn’t seen my dog do it, and now it’s hunt the poo. I can see the other dog owner watching me and I’m torn between asking him to tell me where it is, or if he would just like to shout out across the green, hotter! colder!.

I found it at last. I’m beginning to wonder if he was a self appointed ‘dog poo policeman’.

I once watched a woman opposite my house pick up her dog's shit, bag it then hang it in a tree. I shouted out the window was she really going to leave it there to which she shouted back saying she'd collect it on her way back. I pointed out there was a dog poo bin at the end of the road, and why wouldn't she take it and put it in the bin.... but no.....she left it there....unbelievable. She did collect it on her way back but think that was because she knew I'd be watching. Just bone idle.

It's an issue and it's wide spread enough to be a problem . It's disgusting on the pavement but I hate it most when dogs shit on the grass in the park where you can't see it immediately or where your kids run around freely. We live next to a beautiful park but since lockdown it's just full of dog shit. I don't want to keep telling the kids look where you are running and I don't want to deal with dirty shoes either.

I used to love dogs and used to think highly of their owners believing that anyone who took good care of a dog had to be a good person but now I'm not so sure. Still like dogs but I've met enough nasty owners to be suspicious of them now (not just the shit leavers but also the ones who let their massive bull sized dogs jump up a small child and then get angry when the child gets scared. Bastards. Or the ones that have a go at cyclists for cycling on the cycle path. No idea what that is about. What is it dog owners? Why do some of you hate cyclists and small children so much?) There's also some lovely ones of course who gently encourage kids not to be scared or the ones who just leave you alone but there's too many of the other type around.

Well it must have been a fox or a hedgehog dressed up as a cat then, as I saw it with my own eyes.

If he hadn't told you then you wouldn't have known. I think it's ok that you didn't pick it up immediately or maybe weren't going to at all if it was an emergency but to call him dog poo policeman just because he pointed it out to you makes you part of the problem. You obviously resent him and don't think leaving a poo is such a big deal. Would you rather people ignore it when someone hasn't noticed their dog has pooed?

Even worse then not picking up is leaving the dog boo bags hanging off trees and bushes, just unbelievable do these people think there a poo fairy’s that will come and take it away.

if you have a dog then you have to deal with the poo.

But let’s be honest with ourselves people just don’t care they throw there rubbish out there cars, drop there cans plastic bottles and crisp packets, I take a carry bag out with with most days walking the dog and I can easily fill it up most days with rubbish. As I get older I really don’t think we deserve the beautifully plant we live on.

You never see it here. We must be a very conscientious community.

Uggh yes. My toddler was happily playing in the park yesterday and he falls over every two minutes. His hands have had questionable stuff on them but I try to tell myself that it's mud and that he hasn't licked his hands before I've had a chance to clean them.

Dog shit is an issue here in Cornwall. We have discarded little bags full of poo left on any corner whether that's a residential estate, woodland walk, coast path, beach carpark or outside Boots in town.

Non bagged = everywhere.

It absolutely stinks. Some beaches are awful for it too. Castle Beach in Falmouth tends to have dog walkers who don't pick up. Last week I told a woman her dog shat right next to her and she claimed she hadn't realised. Really? It was STINKING and right outside the cafe where people queue 🤢

Dog poo isn't just messy and inconvenient if you get it on your shoes though - it's a major health hazard and can lead to blindness. Plenty of times I've seen dogs mess left on football and cricket pitches, school fields and playgrounds - disgusting and irresponsible. This is from an American site called Super Scoopers:

'When it comes to dog poop, most of us just think it's gross. In actuality, it is much worse than gross. It is dangerous. So dangerous that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency labeled pet waste a nonpoint source pollutant, which means it is in the same category as toxic chemicals from motor vehicles, pesticides, and more. They even suggest flushing it down the toilet rather than letting it pile up in your yard.

According to Live Science, “America’s 83 million pet dogs produce some 10.6 million tons of poop every year.” That’s a whole lot of poo. Here’s where it gets even scarier – “A single gram [of poop] contains an estimated 23 million bacteria.” When dog poop isn’t disposed of correctly, we all are in danger of the bacteria it contains.

In other words, there are far worse dangers than getting doggy doo on the bottom of your shoe. Unfortunately, many people think the doody their dog leaves behind isn’t that big of a deal. But consider this tidbit from Live Science, “Just two to three days of waste from 100 dogs can contribute enough bacteria, nitrogen and phosphorous to close 20 miles of a bay-watershed to swimming and shellfishing.”

Pet waste contains harmful bacteria such as E. Coli and fecal coliform. Waters that contain a high amount of bacteria such as E. Coli are unfit for human contact.”
In addition to our water systems, dog poop is bad for the rest of the environment. Live Science reports, “It can also get into the air we breathe: a recent study of air samples in Cleveland, Ohio, and Detroit, Mich., found that 10 to 50 percent of the bacteria came from dog poop.”

When we allow it to sit and fester, it actually gives time and space for parasite eggs and larvae to become infectious.
PetMD explains, “Everything from hookworms to whipworms, roundworms and giardiasis in dogs may be hiding out in a dog’s droppings. These types of organisms, according to Dr. Brown, can affect other pets in your home and may even be transmitted to the humans in the house as well.” The doo left behind leaves the eggs of its parasites in the soil for years to come. This means anytime you walk barefoot on the soil or your kids play in the dirt, there is a possibility they will come in contact with parasites, such as hookworms, ringworms, and tapeworms.'

I feel very, very strongly, OP, that the past tense of shit is shat, not shitted🤣🤣

Seriously though, it's a huge problem where I live. I used to walk the DC to school and they liked to take their scooters. The number of times I had to do a u-turn due to shitty wheels and shoes and bespattered trousers🤮🤮

There are only four banned breeds in the UK, how many of these do you possibly think you're seeing?

@SecretWorrier I’m in Spain. Today I picked up 10 bags of dog poo that had been left by lazy owners. I’ve never seen the cleaning of streets by hose that you mentioned. It doesn’t happen. And Spain is far far worse for the leaving of dog poo on pavement’s than the UK.

Because it's disgusting stuff and they'd rather not have to pick it up and deal with it and think they can get away with not doing it. Usually they are right. It's one of the major reasons why I don't want a dog

@Mrsherdwick it was the case in Madrid and in Granada. I lived in both for six months each.
The policy may have changed since then.

I disagree with this. I work with teenagers and many of them are very environmentally conscious. We have caught dog owners letting their dogs shit on our front lawn on three occasions and on each occasion the culprits were middle aged.

Oh yeah, the spit 🤮 🤮 I try to dodge it but I dread to think the number of times I’ve stood in it by accident and brought a gross stranger’s phlegm back into my lovely home.

No excuse. Presumably he manages to feed his dog at home? How? Can he not get a pooper scooper to use, meaning he doesn't have to get up?

It’s entitled laziness and selfish (very very odd exception is physically unable to)

the worse is hanging it in trees/bushes it’s absolutely disgusting. I’ve seen a poster claim that’s it fine to leave in a bush and collect on way home apparently no one is bothered 🙄 what utter bollocks. No it is not. It’s not fine for me when I have had a picnic to leave rubbish around to collect on the way home I carry it with me it’s my rubbish