I Picked Up Poop Today

I think when you get a dog, or maybe when you get your dog licensed, you should have to sit through a talk on poop. I’m serious. Picking up poop is one of the major duties involved in being a dog owner, and no one talks about it.

No one needs to be told to pick up poop when an accident happens in the house, but what about everywhere else?

On walks, you need to pick up after your dog, and not just in the public parks (where it’s the law) but also as you walk in your neighborhood. Leaving poop on the neighbor’s lawn, on the sidewalk, or even along the drainage ditch is not nice.

At the dog park, one of my biggest pet peeves is the people who pretend not to see their dog squatting to take a poop. It’s obvious they are trying to get out of picking it up. I accept that sometimes you do miss seeing your dog take a dump or that sometimes they are far enough away from you that by the time you get over there, you just can’t find it (especially in tall grass). These things happen. Do you know what you should do in those cases? Pick up the poop you can find, even if it obviously doesn’t belong to your dog.

We always try to have one more poop bag than we think we’ll need at the dog park and do a karma pick up on our way out. If there’s a pile of poop near where our dog pooped, we’ll try to get them both.

Yes, it’s a dog park. Yes, I accept that there will be some poop. But there could be a lot less if owners were actually responsible.

And finally, the hardest part to talk about- picking up the poop on your own lawn. I know, you walk the dog and take it to the dog park to avoid having poop on your own lawn, because that’s gross. But when you own a dog and have a yard, guess what, there will be poop. And it will need to be picked up. And you’ll hate it. Sometimes it will have rained recently (in the Seattle area, make that most of the time) and the poop will be more like brown goop, and it will be extra gross.

My favorite time to pick up poop? Honestly is when it’s really cold outside. Frozen poop is the easiest poop to pick up.

But it doesn’t matter where your dog poops. It is your responsibility to pick it up. And you need to know that, before you get the dog.

Elizabeth K says:

February 18, 2012 at 6:36 am

"and do a karma pick up on our way out"

You are awesome. And this might be the best picking-up-poop post I've ever read.

P.S. You've reminded me of one more reason I've missed having a real winter this year.

:-/

Erin Shanendoah says:

February 18, 2012 at 7:23 am

Well, I knew you would love this post.

And me, too, on the winter. Seattle's been relatively mild. I'm used to the rain, but I'd like one or two more clear mornings when it's just over freezing. I hate picking up soggy poop.

2 Punk Dogs says:

February 18, 2012 at 9:26 am

That's the one thing I like about winter, frozen poop! We've had a mild winter this year, so it's just as gross as the rest of the year. I try to have the dogs go in the yard before we leave so I can use the scooper vs having to pick up with bags on walks. It doesn't always work, sometimes they go again anyway, so both coats have a roll of bags.

Love the karma pickup! I tend to scoop part of the neighbors' field even if it's way too small to be from our dogs. With my luck I'd step in it in the dark.

Erin Shanendoah says:

February 18, 2012 at 12:21 pm

C prefers the opposite- he'd rather have them go on the walk when he can pick it up right away (still solid, not rained on goop) instead of having it sitting in the yard waiting for one of us to get tired of having to watch where we step every time we take the dogs out.