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| from mirror.co.uk |
Is it me, or is the dog shit situation at least as bad as it was in the fifties? We went for a local walk yesterday, it being a fine sunny day with birds twittering on every bough. As ever we found ourselves walking with eyes glued to the ground to avoid treading in dog shit.
There are large green areas near where we live and of course they attract lots of nimby dog-owners. Nearby pavements seem to suggest that some dogs couldn't quite wait until they reached the grassy bits where kids play and dogs shit.
Many doggy folk seem to pick the stuff up in those little plastic bags, because they swing them casually as they walk - look at me, I'm a responsible dog person. Well so they are. In fact I quite admire their insouciance. However, some obviously don't bother with all that.
Maybe the defiantly bagless dog-owners sneak out at night, because we never actually see a dog being allowed to shit on the pavement while the owner stares abstractedly into the middle distance, scratching his latest tattoo.
One of the dogs must be a real monster if turd size and canine BMI are correlated, so I'm not surprised the owner gets away with not picking it up.
Out in the Derbyshire hills, walking is a much more relaxed affair. If you don't mind sheep, horse and cow dung that is. Which I don't, because I don't dislike farmyard smells - nowhere near as bad as the stink of dog shit packed tightly into in the treads of your walking boots. It's something to do with a vegetarian diet I believe. Does it apply to humans though?
I think the whole thing has something to do with climate change.
7 comments:
Think it's reflective of the state of society. Yes, it's bad.
Yes, I had noticed more dog shit recently.
And yes it does have to do with diet, hence and why rabbit, sheep, cow and horse poo is far less offensive to the nose and less of a health risk.
I agree - the problem is getting worse. As a relatively long-distance walker, you will probably have noticed the two hundred metre dog shit zone around villages and roads. beyond that, the relatively innocuous by-products of vegetarianism prevail.
More dogs? More feral dogs?
Afterthought, in response to Mark's point:
"And yes it does have to do with diet, hence and why rabbit, sheep, cow and horse poo is far less offensive to the nose and less of a health risk."
I am vegan, whereas the rest of my family are not. I'd like to think that the results of my meditative exertions are less likely to give offence, but a cursory comparison does not bear this out...
James - I'm afraid it is.
Mark - I've seen dogs eat frozen sheep poo, so they find it less offensive too.
Sam - I've often noticed that zone, especially on footpaths leading out of the village towards open land.
Sackers - there do seem to be more dogs and more people seem to have two or three, especially the little ones. Haven't seen any feral dogs though.
Sam - so no inner purity of the biochemical kind?
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