To be annoyed about being asked to pick up poo?

[WFHbore2023]

I'm going to start this by saying - I did do it. I'm annoyed at myself, but I was a bit stunned.
I was walking along with my dog, earphones in. A woman with a pushchair was walking along the same path, walking towards us.
She pointed at some poo on the floor and said something to me, which I didn’t hear as I had my earphones in. I assumed she was asking if it was my dogs poo, so I just said no. I took out an earphone and she said ‘have you got a poo bag? will you pick it up? I hate it when people leave poo’
I was a bit shocked so just picked it up and said ‘yeah, me too’ but afterwards I was like ‘wtf?!’
In hindsight, I should have just given her a bag to pick it up if she’s so bothered by it!
I pick up my dogs poo, and I happily do it, because that is MY job! It’s not my job to pick up other peoples dog poo, it’s bloody gross!
It would be like me pointing to a dirty nappy on the floor and expecting her to pick it up, just because she has a child with her.
Was she BU, or am I for being annoyed that she asked me to?

Was unaware that worms got through plastic bags

I’ve done this as well and it’s rank YANBU

Well yes, because we all know that dog poo bags are indestructible.

Well then the pram pusher needn't have worried about her germy hands.

She was possibly not a dog owner. Picking up dog poo to a non-dog owner is revolting. The fact you are in the habit of picking up poo perhaps means she thought you wouldn't mind.

on that basis I will ask random parents to pick up the soiled nappies that litter the beautiful beach I live next to. And random people to put out the disposable BBQs left merrily burning while they saunter off home.

As op said, it's similar to changing your own child's nappy vs someone else's. But also, poo lying there is going to be cold. It is much more bleuch picking up a cold poo that a warm one.

That said, I do often pick up random poos if they are lying in the middle of the path. It is gross though whereas I have no problem picking up after my own.

She sounds like the type who thinks it’s always someone else’s job to do anything community minded. Just not her.

Presumably she had a snappy bag with her? They are practically the same as dog poo bags imo - when out for the weekend and having run out of dog poo bags, I've bought baby nappy bags as an emergency alternative.
Going by my logic, she could have done the poo pick herself, surely?

That's some weird logic though. 🤪

I’d have given her a bag and left her to it.

I can see why she thought you might have a bag, but agree it’s no more your responsibility to do the actual picking up than anyone’s.

Perhaps because she would be unlikely to have a chance to wash her hands before next touching her child?

Perhaps she thought it was yours?

I wouldn’t have done it but I have real thing about dog poo - I wouldn’t get a dog myself as I wouldn’t like to be anywhere near dog poo - as well as not having time for a dog.

If she was pushing a buggy there is a reasonable likelihood she had some equipment for changing nappies. That is likely to include nappy bags. Same thing as poo bags.

Straw man - Although Car Owners do have a collective responsibility for safe driving. And most professionals have shared standards. And dry cleaners don't often indulge in unhygienic antisocial behaviour in the public realm
Anyway, its my opinion!

I’d have handed her the bag and let her get on with it. I will pick up after my own dog (and he is a big lad so a fair amount of poop scooping per day), but I am not playing poo patrol for a precious woman who can’t walk round the poo left by someone less considerate than myself purely because I have a dog.

What's interesting is what we'll do if asked sufficiently assertively and caught on the hop.
I was coming out of the hairdresser at the same time as a woman once, and she asked if she could have my umbrella as the rain would ruin her style, and mine had only been a wet cut. I said yes too.😁

How near a bin were you?

I pick up poos if I know there is a bin nearby but I'm not traipsing round with a bag of poo from someone else's dog. My dog very rarely goes anywhere but my garden so often I only have one bag with me so don't carry loads of spares either.

I am a dog owner and I agree that it always feels more gross picking up an old poo that isn't your own dog's. I think It's just the temperature? But why?! Why is cold poo more gross than warm poo?!

One thing I do is, if for any reason I haven't picked up my own dog's poo* (before I get flamed, this has happened about 3 or 4 times in the whole 12 or more years of me owning dogs!)I will pick up a different one. Unfortunately they're never in short supply.

*Once when dog did it in the middle of a busy road we were crossing. Very lucky to have not held up traffic, just a rare lull. I couldn't have picked it up without putting myself in danger, and nobody's feet were going to come into contact with it there anyway. Gross on car tyres perhaps but not a residential area so likely to have disintegrated well before anyone parked up.
Once when at dusk dog was off lead and ran off and I saw the squat but couldn't find it in the thicket for love nor money.
Once when dog backed into a very prickly bush at the side of a narrow path-I couldn't get to it without being horribly scratched, (no idea why it didn't scratch dog's bum!) and the poo bag would have got ripped anyway and again, very unlikely any humans would have come into contact with it.

YANBU OP, you're doing your duty by picking up your own dog's poo. What irresponsible owners do/don't do is not your fault not your problem to sort out!

@5128gap absolutely! Sometimes we get asked something so outrageous that some sort of agreeable answer comes out of our mouths when really the response should be anything but agreeable!

This has rather reminded me that a couple of years back a nearby house owner did something similar to me. I'd just walked past his house hen he yelled "are you going to pick that up?" and pointed at the hugest poo ever.

I said it wasn't my dog that did it. (It wasn't. In fact, if he'd produced that monster he'd have been straight down the vets.)

He said "even so, you have a dog and a poo bag, you should pick it up"

So I did. And popped it into his wheelie bin which happened to be out for collection. He went red as a beet and ask what the hell I was doing. I pointed out that I'd picked it up and binned it. I wasn't carrying someone else's dog shit around for a full walk.

I often wonder if he ever asked anyone else again.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: dogs are not the same as babies.

I wonder what she’d say if you asked her to pick up a nappy abandoned somewhere, just because she has a baby 🤔

Why did you agree to do it if it's made you this unhappy?

I had a nappy bag for my DC but it was a reusable one as I had cloth nappies. Another poster has pointed out that this is not a good assumption to make. I also know more mums today do not use single use plastic nappy bags so the likelihood is even lower than it was when my DC were little.

However a dog walker should always have poo bags on them because they walk their dogs specifically so that they can have a poo and it is a legal requirement to pick up the poo.

It doesn’t make sense too that a mum would ask a dog walker for help if she had a bag on hand to do it herself. Most people don’t like to approach random strangers and ask for assistance even when they need it.

Tbf poo bags are probably thicker than nappy bags ! Some of them are shockingly thin, I wouldn't want to be picking dog shit up with one 😆

I was caught off guard 🤣

It's only as I was walking away, someone elses shit swinging in the breeze, that I thought 'eh?'