Monday, October 20, 2008

Walking the dogs and poop nonsense

Recently, Oprah had a show on civility. They discussed rude behaviours, etiquette and do's and dont's in polite society. I found this show very interesting. Especially, in the category of walking your dog and what to do with your dog's doodoo. See, I live next to a park where I frequently, though not nearly enough, walk my dogs, Audrey Hepburn and Pepper Hepburn. The Hepburn's love a good walk and they can't possibly go without some kind of elimination along the way. Our park has convenient little poop collection bags all along the pathway and although I consider this a very lovely idea, I rarely take advantage of them. I don't want to pick up dog poop. If they poo on the pavement, yes. If they poo in the grass in a spot where I don't think someone will wander into, no. It is dog poop. It is a park. There are squirrels everywhere pooping away the day. My dogs tiny little turd will decompose in a few days and it will enhance the very nature of the park. I don't want to pick it up and I don't think it is necessary.
On the other hand, let's say I had a big Lab or Rott and this dog pooed in the park (I would never own one of these large, hairy, smelly beasts) I would take along one of those big metal pooper scoopers and gladly deposit the mountainous poo in the trash can.

I am pretty sure that O and the other etiquette police feel that you should always scoop the poop no matter what. I disagree. I feel that there should be guidelines to follow about when and where you should scoop. For instance, you should never leave poo in someones well manicured lawn. That is just wrong!
DO YOU HEAR ME GUY DOWN THE STREET WITH THE LITTLE BROWN DOG?
I think if you do this you deserve to have the same poo put in a bag and lit on fire on your front porch. (If I were someone who picked up poop, I would do this!)

You should never leave poo of any size on a walking path, even if the path is not paved. It is still a path for walking and one should not have to worry about walking in your dogs poop.

You should never leave it in a play area. Have you ever had to clean dog poop off you toddler's shoe with a wipey? Not good, my friends, not good.

I feel these are some pretty good guidelines to start with.

After saying all of this about dogs I do feel it is my duty to confront the cat people. For some reason you guys think it is perfectly fine to allow your precious cats to roam about the neighborhood pooping in our flower beds, peeing on our front porches and napping on our patio furniture. This is NOT okay. It is nasty.
We have a grey cat that thinks my flower beds are toilets. I am going to start using Landry's air soft guns to shoot it with little bee bees when I see it. Maybe that will get my point across. OH, maybe I could use it on the man with the little brown dog. Beware!!!!

1 comment:

Chrystal Sturm said...

Maybe it's because I am not a dog owner but I tend to agree with the masses. Indeed, the masses. All dog poop - any size - should be picked up and disposed of. Period. I rarely disagree with my Lita but on this subject, I must.

That said. I have one of those mangy cats who thinks he owns the whole freaking neighborhood. I'm horrified by his rudeness (maybe he gets it from me as I scored a 100% on the Oprah rudeness test). But WHAT can I do about it? He's an outdoor cat. Unlike a dog owner with, I can't monitor his goings on. Certainly not where he poops and rests.

All I can do is be ok with you shooting him with your bee bee gun. Do as you wish. Teach him his lesson!

Dog and cat etiquette. Weirdly diverse. Wouldn't you agree?