A child's sight damaged by dog sh*t

[Greensleeves]

There's a story in our local newspaper this morning about an eleven year old girl whose sight has been permanently damaged by toxicaria from dog mess left in the street.

I am sick, sick, sick of dodging piles of sh*t in the streets, courtesy of the lazy, selfish @rseholes who don't care enough for other people to clean up after their animals.

sorry about offensive spelling mistakes!

and the dogs should be wormed regularly.
this will cut down the amoount of toxacaro in the poo too.

so, gentle reminder to all the dog owners- worm your pets at least every 3 months anywya

of course children are more important but where does it the banning of things that harm them end. Why stop at dogs? Most accidents happen in the home, where shall we live? Parents cause untold harm to their kids - kill all parents.

Ban the individuals from keeping animals but don't punish everyone else.

Unless of course you want to ban vehicles.

And alcohol.
And a whole list of others things I can't be arsed to think about.

I have scar marks on my hand caused by a cat when I was little. Can we include cats in the culling please

Oh and fags and alcohol. How many people are responsible with these? How many children are harmed by adults using these?

I am a dog-owner and live in South London. I always pick up after my dog, she is well-trained and when she was a puppy I kept her on a lead when children were around (as puppies think children are weird creatures to be barked at).

I can't count the number of people in my park who teach their children to be scared of dogs. Result: children panic whenever they see one and scream and jump around which scares the dog and more often than not will make it bark. Which scares the child even more.

I agree that there are some irresponsible dog-owners out there, but there are MORE responsible ones.

There are LOADS of irresponsible parents who don't supervise their children properly or educate them about animals. I think they should be put through trainng programmes and exams personally.

I've been physically threatened by huge fathers in my park on a number of occasions because they're scared of my small, well-behaved, lovely dog.

I understand why people are angry and upset about that poor child -me too - but cries of 'BRING BACK HANGING' are ridiculous, Daily-Mail-like and reactionary.

Dogs have been our close companions for thousands of years. They are wonderful creatures, and just need to be taught to fit into a world designed around humans.

My mum spent a lot of my childhood campainging for something to be done about dog mess where we used to live. It was a close with a green opposite the house and we all played out there but people also let their dogs run around and mess. in those days no-one ever picked up after their dogs and my mum campaigned for years to not allow dogs. she won in the end.

That poor kid

PS am a dog over so not getting at dogs & owners etc

In my neighbourhood there's a tireless campaigner who goes out with her chalk every day drawing around the dog poo and leaving messages like, 'Clean up. We know who you are,' and 'Yuck! Clean it up'. There's far less of it now than there used to be.

Most people round here seem to pick up after themselves. Certainly when they're being watched.

I totally agree with your post hopecat. Very well said. I too was a dog owner in South London and noticed people actually teaching children to fear dogs, which puts the dogs on edge and creates unecessary hassle. Self perpetuating.

How terrible
I have to dodge great big piles of shite on the way to my dd's pre-school ,it drives me mad it's like doing the friggin shit slalem!

I think the problem is, hopecat, it only takes one badly behaved dog with one irresponsible owner to damage a child for life or worse. You can't tell the difference by looking. If a dog I don't know runs up to my child, I am scared. I don't know whether this dog is well-behaved or dangerous. Half the time the owner is not in sight anyway, or doing nothing about it. To be perfectly honest I do not want any dog to stick its face near my child's hands or face anyway. I think it's disgusting.

There are plenty of people who feel the same way as me. Keep your dog away from my child or teach it not to put its face near my child, otherwise I will not be happy, and I will pick up my child, stand in front of my child to protect it, or order your dog away. Tough if it offends the owner (and it's obvious sometimes it does).

But that could be said of anything which causes harm. It only takes one drunk driver..... So do we ban all alcohol or all cars? Realistically that isn't going to happen.

So we need to look at what can improve matters. Such as putting fines up to a serious level for owners who don't clear up after their dogs. Give councils more resources to police the streets to identify the culprits. Banning persistent offenders from owning dogs.

I am not talking banning dogs (although I might personally want to). I am saying, don't be offended if you let your dog run around and approach my child and I act scared and teach him to keep away from dogs. This was being criticised earlier in the thread. I have had upset dog owners come over and say (after the dog has jumped up at us, etc) "Oh he's quite friendly, you know, he won't hurt you". Well I don't know that and I don't really care. Some dogs are dangerous (and to me, a strange animal wanting to share saliva and god knows what else is revolting anyway). Keep your dog away from me.

Yeah actually, I don't care if they don't want to bite me, what if I'm wearing my new Boden outfit and don't want paw marks on it?

OK I'm being flippant, but really, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to be able to walk down the street without being accosted by a moving thing who may leave dirty marks on you. Call me Howard Hughes.

I have a dog and wouldn't dream of not cleaning up after her. She has her worming done religiously and her yearly boosters without fail.
But I get so angry when i see dogs mess left in the middle of the street or in the park or wherever. The fines should be a hell of a lot more than they are IMO. And they need to be implemented. Its just uneducated lazy selfish idiots that give all dog owners a bad name.

As for kids being scared, my ds was bitten on the face when he was 18months old but it has never affected him. He knows not to flap about near a dog but is also careful if the dog gets too near. Children need to be educated that not all dogs are vicious but they still need to be treated with respect.

I know I parped myself but I can't stay away...
I'm with you Franny. So much is down to the owner. I'm a bit dogphobic. Last week I was on a walk and came across 2 dogs (separate incidents) roaming free some way from their owners - both times I approached very slowly and asked the owners to call their dogs to them and they both did, no problem. I was really pleased - and surprised, tbh. If all owners were like that (and cleared up their dogs' sh*t, of course) how much easier my life would be. However, my usual experience is overwhelmingly negative - owners who let their huge dogs run straight up to me and then swear at me and/or say 'don't be so silly, he's harmless'.
Quite often I hear dog owners saying they don't have to clear up their dogs' mess because 'I pay my taxes'. WTF?
I would be for huge fines for each offence, and if they repeat offend owners should be banned from keeping dogs.

I can understand of course not liking dogs and being afraid of them but dont understand why you'd bring your child up to fear them.

Dd knows that our dog is friendly and she has no fear whatsoever of dogs. But she knows they are unpredictable and I dont allow her to go up to strange dogs and she has to respect them. You can do that without passing a phobia on to them.

I'm alarmed at the strength of anti dog feeling on this thread. Dogs and man have evolved together since our hunter gatherer days. We working really well together. We've used their brilliant hearing and sense of smell and they've enjoyed scraps from our meals. They have as much right to be here as we do. It's not their fault we've concreted over so much of their habitat.

Of course we should pick up their poo, but it's not the dogs fault that some owners don't.

The vast majority of dogs are nice and it's sad to pass on our fears to our children. What's more the dogs who are aggressive tend to have shit owners who've made them that way.

I have to agree withh spidermama. Of course kids come first,but dogs are entitled to live on this planet too.

The only time I have been accused of scaremonging in Mumsnet was when I mentioned toxicaria in a thread where most mums were praising the "antibiotic" qualities of dogs saliva generously spread on their toddler faces by their own pet (yeah, I know is not the same poo as saliva but then, my dog licks his bottom often enough to worry me and yes, he has also walked by accident on other dogs' poo).

So come on, where are all those persons who accussed me of making it up about Toxicaria??? those who told me that it was not really needed to use a dewormer at least twice a year?

Dogs are as guilty as toxicaria as cats are of shitting other people's gardens, but I wouldn't have the freedom to be so critical of cats if I kept leaving my dogs' poo around the streets.

I dont remember that thread. i do worm my dog regularily and dont let him lick my face or my kids face. I've seen where his tongue goes...

Re passing fears on to children, I think it's a huge assumption that kids get their fear of animals from their parents.

I've always been very careful around dogs - have taught the kids not to just run up to them and pat them, and that they have to ask the owner first to say hello - but have always encouraged them to be calm and friendly to dogs, to offer them their hand and stroke them when the owner says they can, and to generally not be afraid. I also have a family friend who has a lovely dog that they play with often. But still one or other of the children will flap alarmingly when a strange dog approaches them. That's not because I've taught them to, it's because they're alarmed by a strange dog approaching them, when they've been taught that they mustn't approach a dog without the owner's permission. Granted their response is wrong, and I always tell them to keep still and calm, but don't assume that children have been taught to fear dogs by their parents. I think fear of dogs is probably quite a primal one tbh.

Yes, all what you say is true but I tend to see some parents (not all) react in a scared manner and grab their kids close to them. Some parents are sensible like you but I also get parents letting their kids stroke/hug my dog without asking. Others are just abusive.

I just remember it because I was accussed of scaremonging and openly laughed at when I mentioned about the need to work dogs periodically... though... I was shocked at how many people strongly deffended the point that face licking was OK.