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While I was waiting at a stoplight today I watched a woman bend over to pick up her dog’s poop. She wore an expression of total disgust on her face and after she’d bagged the offending item she held it gingerly between her thumb and index finger as far away from her body as her arm would reach. She then took about 10 steps, stopped and set the bag down in front of a light standard and walked away.
I’ve seen bags of poop on the ground a few times and I’ve always just assumed that someone forgot it. I’ve done that – set the bag down while I fiddle with my camera and then forget to pick it up.* This wasn’t that, though. This was deliberately making her dog’s poop someone else’s problem. Someone like me who walks with a trash bag because I don’t like litter. I think there should be a rule that if you aren’t prepared to deal with your dog’s shit then you shouldn’t have a dog.
*I almost always go back to pick it up.
I heartily agree. One of my least favourite memories from delivering newspapers was stepping on dog (or other mammal) poo in the night time. This happened multiple times.
I agree entirely. Perhaps even worse is when they leave the bagged shit somewhere the unbagged shit would degrade quickly or hang the bags on trees or bushes. Why would you do that? And if I can pick up after two German Shepherds you can damn well pick up after your muff dog.
It’s long been a popular mystery why some people do this. I mean, if you aren’t going to carry your dog’s poop away, why bother to touch it at all?
Now, it makes perfect sense if you’re hoping that someone else -- almost certainly a fellow dog walker -- would take away a random poop if it’s already been bagged.
As for stepping on dog poo, and hearing people complain about dog poo, I remember it was a big thing in my childhood 20-30 years ago. Nowadays it’s rare to see dog poo lying around in Helsinki, at least in my neighborhood.
In some jurisdictions, you can be fined if you do not clean up your dog’s poop. I am not sure how the law would be interpreted in the instance of that woman, but it should be just the same.
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Part of the responsibility of owning a pet is cleaning up the poop. One homeowner in my neighborhood made sure that people could not use the excuse of “no bags” by erecting a post at the edge of their yard with a dispenser for poop bags. People who do not clean up their pet’s poop should have a truckload of poop dumped into their yard.