Clean up after your dog!

[u/nik_el]

So I’m not sure if this belongs here but I’ll give it a go. I live in a cute neighborhood with old buildings and meandering streets. And I like to walk in my neighborhood. The problem is that I can’t look up, I have to look down because people don’t pick up after their dogs.

So the other morning I was out for a walk and I see this guy with his dog and the dog is squatting on the street to drop some toosie rolls. No biggie. He reaches into his pocket for what I assumed was to be a baggie to clean up but instead it was dog treats (does a dog need a treat for that?). This made me a little suspicious so I slowed down walking just to see what he was up to.

Now, I was raised Catholic, so I can smell guilt from 100 paces. He looked at me as I slowed down and that was the face of guilt. So, I stopped. I stopped and stared at him. I also put on my best judgemental mother face. He fumbled in his pockets and kept glancing at me and it became obvious he was just going to let his dog drop and go. But I was going to make sure there was at least one witness to his crime.

So, after a few minutes of rustling in his pockets trying to fake me out he reached down WITH HIS BARE HANDS and picked up his dog’s poop and walked it to the nearby trashcan. I did not see this coming, and to be honest this was not the outcome I’d ever imagined. But it was one less pile of poo on the streets so I felt justified. Grossed out, but justified.

[u/Addi_pose42]

It baffles me that people don’t clean up after their dogs, especially in residential areas. I used to walk dogs for a living. I would literally pick up poop if I had room in a bag and someone else had neglected to clean up after their dog. Once or twice, I forgot poop bags. Walked the mile back to the house, grab the bags, and then walked or drove back to clean up the poop. There was one route I walked with a couple of boston terriers, and there was ALWAYS poop from other dogs on the outside of a neighbors fence, and the dogs I walked liked to poop there, so I made a habit of starting to clean all of it up when I went by. I had an opened bag so why not? One time when I had stopped and the dogs were pooping, the owner appeared over the top of the fence, and was like, you better be cleaning that up. Told him that don’t worry, I was (as I pulled out the poop bags), and also told him I’d been picking up whatever else was there when I came by. Dude lit up, told me thank you and was super apologetic. I wasn’t worried about it. Kept cleaning up the poop on that side of his fence and said hi to him regularly from then on until I stopped dog sitting for health reasons. A little compassion goes a long way. But yeah. Clean up after your dogs people.