I've written about Dog Shit extensively before and the dilemma it poses. Obviously, nobody wants it laying around, but at the very least, it means people are living there. Step 1 accomplished. Step 2 is getting people to clean up after them, which alludes to something deeper, actually caring for and tending to the neighborhood, participating as active stewards in your home (where your loft becomes your bedroom and your neighborhood, your living room, and its restaurants, your kitchen).
Virginia Postrel makes the leap to conclude that the presence of doggie doo doo means an area in decline. Writing for D in 2003, she concluded that uptown must be on its way to decline because a neighborhood that replaced crack vials and used needles from 15 years prior with dog poop must be trending the wrong direction. Lesson, she's an idiot. Apparently, she hasn't been to Paris or New York or London or Rome who have been waging this battle for eons.
There are two certainties regarding people and cities: we like our dogs and there's always an a-hole. The key is to shame the offending jerkstore into behaving like a socially responsible steward like the rest of us.
Eventually Paris had enough and now essentially subsidizes city sponsored clean up after doing the very French thing of surrendering, this time to its own people. Not the ideal solution, but one they felt was necessary after exhausting all other solutions. Lesson: Paris is full of a-holes.
Downtown Dallas Inc. has raised the issue before as well. To which I responded, that it is awfully hard to ensure responsibility is taken by everyone when the City provides dispensers for baggies, but never fills them. I'll give them credit, since I wrote that there have been baggies available at Main Street Garden nearly every single day, but I think one (from memory).
Still to this day however, I save all my plastic grocery bags (not paper?! or reusable burlap?! how very ungreen! off with his head) to carry with me to clean up after my dogs, just in case. Of course, there is always the occasional accident where I might be rushing and forget to grab an extra plastic bag or two from the drawer. Main Street Gardens is typically the only place where I can reliably find a plastic bag if necessary, which is why I'm writing this:
Today, I witnessed something that pissed me off to the Nth degree. A woman with a stroller and no dog walked over to the dispenser on the far side of the park from where I was, and I heard a noise like a tug at the plastic baggie dispenser. And there she was yanking tens of feet off at a time, like a toddler that just discovered the mechanics of the toilet paper roll and wanted to see if there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. She then proceeded to neatly fold up what must have been at least 20 feet of plastic baggies and discreetly tuck the folded baggies under her baby.
Part of being an active steward in your neighborhood is understanding and participating in the unwritten social contract between neighbors, between businesses and residents, and between residents, businesses, and the city. We expect the City to live up to its promise of providing bags, we expect people to pick up after their dogs, and only take one bag at a time. What is the sense of hording them? Then we all end up with poop on our hands...or feet.
If there is excess dog shit all over downtown Dallas tomorrow, now you'll know why.
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4 comments:
I've always found the problem in Dallas is lack of trash cans on street corners. So I bring a bag with me to pick up my dog's mess. I still don't really want to carry around stinky crap with me if I'm planning on a long walk. I find that the lack of trash cans on a street corner makes the assumption that there won't be people using the sidewalks for general use, save for the trip from parking lot or cab to office building with no stops in between. The trash bins on the corners in New York are often gross and overflowing, but they generally are placed every block. So you hang on to your trash (stinky or not) one more block unless you're an a-hole who feels he has done his duty by throwing your trash on the very top of the heap where any slight breeze will knock it into the street.
Amen brother!
Here in Houston the dispensers are often empty too. Because I'm really lucky - my dog likes to poop in his own yard and will only go elsewhere in dire emergencies - I generally stick a bad in my pocket and then pull it back out when I get home.
But, I've watched one of the neighbors' kids take their dog out, walk two houses up, watch the dog poop on the lawn there, and then go back home.
Dogs are good. People, less so.
I have a friend who gently shames people in her Virginia neighborhood by always taking an extra bag. So when she sees an offender, she says, "Did you forget your bags? Here, I have an extra!" A little shaming can go a long, long way. She tells me that usually the person looks slightly flustered... and then cleans up.
You know, I just got "shamed" by my neighbor this morning for my dog pooping in a ditch (right of way - not really "your" property) across the street from him. I take violent offense to someone accosting me rudely as I walk down a public street. Outside. It would have been one thing if he would have been nice about it as one of your commenters reported: "Do you need a bag?" because I was in a hurry to get my puppy out of the house so he wouldn't do the deed inside. This really flies all over me. Don't talk to me, especially because your son is a registered sex offender, asshole. I'm not the asshole. My dogs are in control, in their own yards, and on a leash otherwise (rarely to I walk them outside the yard). I wonder if this jerk would yell from his yard at the litterbugs who throw trash and cigarette butts out on the street or in the ditch? At least dog waste decomposes. It's natural. Because I allow my dog to crap in the right-of-way (never would I allow him to drop a loaf in someone's yard) does not mean I am a bad person, or live in squalor. You pick-up-your-dog-doo people KILL Me.
I am lucky that I have a poo collecting device which is light and convinient to carry inside a dog walk bag. I have been praised by my neighbour and some of them even will stop down to watch the whole event. It will just take me a few second to finish the job with the doo tied inside a glocery bag.
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