It’s very difficult for those of us who always scoop our dogs’ poop to understand those who don’t. I honestly have never heard anyone defend their habit of looking the other way (and then walking the other way!) when their dog defecates somewhere he or she shouldn’t – such as on a public sidewalk, on someone else’s lawn, or outside of a hotel – and I really just can’t imagine what such a person is thinking when they do this.
That said, anyone can be caught without a bag or scooper at some random time. I myself have been guilty of walking my dogs a short distance in my neighborhood without a bag with me after I saw them poop in my own backyard – and then being surprised that one of them still had a little more poop to offer (so to speak) on the walk.
But when I’m caught without a bag, I’ll do anything to find something to pick up the poop. My first tactic is to look for trash – a floating plastic bag, a fast-food wrapper, a soft-drink cup – that I can use. The kind of free advertising newspapers that tend to linger in driveways are good for this purpose. Lacking any of these things, I’ve dumped out coffee I was drinking and used the paper cup to scoop and carry! I’ve also left a leash on the ground near the poop, kept walking until I’ve found something to use, and gone back to where I left the leash to complete my dog-owner responsibilities.
But apparently people do walk away from their dogs’ poop without a second thought! Enough of them do so, in fact, that from time to time we see media reports of another town or neighborhood, or most recently, a large condominium complex, who has engaged the services of a company that can match the DNA in abandoned poop with its canine pooper! The latest was a report in the New York Times about a complex with about 440 condos, counting some 175 dogs among its inhabitants, that recently required all of its residents to register their dogs and submit DNA samples for enrollment in such a poop identification program.
I have to ask: WHO DOES THIS? And why?
