To not pick up dog poo...

[Moonfishstar]

... when in a quiet forest, but to flick it with a stick into dense undergrowth instead?

I don't see any issue with this, but I've got a feeling lots will disagree with me, so I wanted to get some other opinions.

@ThereIbledit I’ve PMd you.

The Firestry Commiduin do indeed condone stick and flick. They promote it

Humans including children should stay on the paths. Running all over the place off the paths has detrimental affects on tree and all plant roots along small animals and insects.
Woodlands are not there for humans and children to explore first and foremost.

Forestry England is funded by the Firestry Commission. The FC promote stick and flick

Thank you @sexyandsmart those are the exact posters I remember seeing!

Did you find them on the internet or are they photos you took yourself? Just wondering how old they are, as I assume FC has changed guidance along with FE.

Not anymore they don't. Read the thread. 🙄

Here are the relevant Scottish links, as English ones have been provided.

https://www.outdooraccess-scotland.scot/practical-guide-all/dog-walkers/dog-walking -- "Pick up and remove your dog's faeces if it defecates in a public open place"

https://www.outdooraccess-scotland.scot/sites/default/files/2023-02/Dog%20Owners%20Leaflet%202023.pdf -- "always bag and bin dog poo – take it home when bins aren’t available"

https://www.outdooraccess-scotland.scot/sites/default/files/2022-04/Dog%20Waste%20and%20Disease%20poster%20-%20FINAL%20-%2030%20November%202017%20%28A2480231%290.pdf -- On the harms of dog poo

-- A whole radio ad about picking up dog poo

Nope it’s also gross, but it’s not intentional. Some people intentionally don’t pick up dog poo, that’s the issue. Maybe cat poo is a significant problem for some. But I don’t see it littering streets, parks, beaches and woodland 🤢Even in front of my neighbours drive the other morning, he had to pick up dog poo before he ran his car through it or his kids stepped in it - he doesn’t even have a dog. I was putting my child in the car at the same time. Grim.

Deluge of dog pee and poo harming nature reserves, study suggests | Biodiversity | The Guardian

Gosh this is the most nannyish thing I’ve read in a while.
Of course children should be allowed to explore and get dirty (not dog poo obvs) and not have to stick to the paths.

You would have an attack of the vapours at my 1970s childhood which involved exploring woods, fields, rivers, reservoirs on our own, all day, with sandwiches carried in an old bread bag with no mobile phones! That’s why my friend and I are pretty resilient.

Good for you for worming his dog.

WHY people are so ignorant of this very basic need?

ALL puppies are born with worms, even if their mother has been regularly wormed.

The lifecycle of the roundworm means that when a bitch is pregnant, worm larvae from the mother's tissues migrate to the pups and into the milk after birth.

Just because adult worms aren't seen, doesn't mean that they are not there.

We had a vet once who used to sell cheap but effective wormers for dogs and cats as he said he'd rather people used them than children were put at risk from 'visceral larval migrans' that can potentially cause blindness from the roundworm cats and dogs can carry.

Given virtually all my dog-walker friends do this too, I suspect like most MN threads, the responses are highly self-selecting.

Then you and your friends are part of the "happy to be vile and selfish" group that cause people a lot of problems.

If only children walked in straight lines, didnt want to play hide and seek in the undergrowth and thus trample in your dog poo, then we would be kind of ok.

But they do wander/ run/ hide and if it is close enough to be flicked by a stick, it is close enough for kids to walk in.

Stop being so lazy-arsed and start thinking of others. I can promise you the 20 seconds it takes you to pick it up is much less than the time it takes to try and get poo off my kids wellies.

YABVU , as previously stated Forestry England say to pick up not flick . We had the misfortune to visit Hemsted forest ( Kent) last week , we walked about 50 yards from the car park and then turned round and went back as there was literally dog excrement everywhere and I was having trouble keeping my own dog out of it . Disgusting .

I was listening to a radio 4 programme about some Heath and moor land damaged by dog poo. These are sensitive environments with plants that only thrive in very low nutrient soil. Dog walking is enough to provide soil nutrients for tougher more invasive plants, and threatening the delicate biodiversity.

Very rude as we grow and manage our woodlands
We are also fully organic, and are vegans so our impact on the environment is much smaller than others.
We work very hard to protect all wildlife and the environment and have researched heavily into how those who we allow to walk amongst our woodlands and wetlands should act.
Everything we do is fully researched waying up the best possible course of action.
The best course is to not allow people to walk amongst the land at all in order to fully preserve the wildlife, flora and fauna. However we decided people should be able to enjoy it in designated areas and to not stray off these areas, as such our pathways are raised off the undergrowth and all, including children, are not allowed to stray off these.

In terms of dog poo again it has been fully researched, not by me but by the wildlife conservationists and foresters that we use. We are happy to follow their guidance. I can only assume the FC have such a large footfall that they can’t cope with it.
We don’t. As we restrict access to certain days and times of year paying particular attention to periods of growth, both plant and animal.

Yes, my childhood was like this, too...out all day , on my own, zero phones, hunger and thirst drove me back home at the end of the day..I remember being so hungry that I wished I could eat grass!
Zero snacking was allowed - If I found a few empty pop bottles, you could take those back to get the 5p deposit and buy a new bottle.

In all those wandering days {here and Europe} I only once met someone who made my alarm bells ring.... I was going to explore a deserted farm in South of France...and a German man was following me saying 'Hello..Hello..'..

I'd walked a long way to get to the farm, but decided to not risk it..and ran like the clappers to get away from him.

Again:

The poster on the left says Forestry Commission England - is this an old poster? The Forestry Commission England no longer exists in that name, and has been superseded by Forestry England - see the current bag it and bin it advice.

Is the poster on the right an old poster too? The Forestry Commission Scotland was dissolved in 2019 and replaced by Forestry and Land Scotland.

Neither poster is applicable in England, which is where OP said they are.

Where we live, we are a mixture of house and apartments on an estate. There is a man with a largish dog who allows his to poo on the pavement in the little park at the back of us. We have never been able to establish who it is, but in the summer it happens almost daily, its always in the same spot.

Someone has sprayed a 'clean in up' stencil onto the pavement where the dog always leaves his mess. Today I did a litter pick for an hour and got talking to the organiser that I had never met. We got talking about where I lived (about 2 miles from her) and I said we had a little park at the bottom of our estate and she told me she was the one who had stencilled the sign onto the path. What a coincidence!

This really surprised me, too.
An Ecologist friend said that dog poo and pee is nitrogen rich and this in effect 'fertilises' the ground.
I remember the Nitrogen cycle from school with the pooing bunny diagram with arrows...Just googled, they still use a pooping bunny!

Dogs are probably far more 'damaging' in the poo department, dogs aren't herbivores, either.

@MonsteraMama

Only on fucking Mumsnet would we descend to people being accused of gaslighting by page ten of a dogshit thread, Jesus H Christ

Only on mumsnet would people call those concerned that people aren't picking up after their dogs 'hysterical'.

You sound intelligent 🙄

I think flicking it into a bush is preferential over bagging it and then hanging a plastic bag full. of poo on a tree. Which is why some forest commissions have said it's ok...
Just bag it and take it with you.

''There is a man with a largish dog who allows his to poo on the pavement in the little park at the back of us. We have never been able to establish who it is, but in the summer it happens almost daily, it's always in the same spot.''

@HipHop63 can you not shame this man on social media into cleaning uop his shit?

WHY aren't I surprised?...a large dog and a man. Classic poo leaver.

Gross.

Woah! Good finds, and thanks for sharing.

Quite right @Minymile children and adults playing in the undergrowth and running all over the place, off the designated areas, is hugely detrimental.

Some forests have realised the issue and now have allocated areas which have been cleared to allow play.
Its a shame a lot of people don’t seem to get the damage that is being done.

It's almost like nothing else shits in the woods 😂

Is that in the uk? Mine used to eat meat I bought in the supermarket. I’ve had to go to preminced as he’s aged though. Uk dog food has to be human grade meat.