These hipsters are sure to be giving iScoopy Pal and poopoobags a run for their money!
These Olive ‘Unisex’ Poop Bags are:
So, there you go!
This is an old report from RT, and I can’t embed the video – so you’ll have to go to the link to view it – but it’s amusing nonetheless: “Clean a poop, save a child“.
When a dog’s got to do what a dog’s got to do, what do you do with a doggie doo?
It’s interesting to pick up on a couple of things… like the fact that Lyudmila here has been leaving Mika’s poo in the park for seven fricking years! Mika is not a small dog.
Continue reading ‘bags and scoops installed in Moscow parks’
These poo bag pouches carry a brilliant message (unfortunately they’re only available at select stores in France)!
Ramasser, c’est normal!
Pick up, it’s normal – exactly!
It’s not a stretch to say that most people, certainly most who don’t have dogs, think that it’s ‘weird‘ or ‘gross‘ to be picking up poo, and it’s not a stretch to think that if you walk away from your* poo, many folks would ‘understand’. But as long as it’s socially accepted to feel this way, the problem has to persist.
And fines, admonishments and scolding don’t address this.
“Pick up, it’s normal” does.
Leave it to our European friends at Le Chien du Citoyen to figure this out!
Brilliant.
* If it’s ‘your’ dog, then it’s your poop!
Here’s an initiative that we also heard about on the BBC Scotland show ‘The Scoop on Poop‘ (audio available until 2/27/12) – the Green Dog Walkers project.
Green Dog Walkers is a friendly, non-confrontational way to change attitudes towards dog fouling. Green Dog Walkers are volunteers who have taken a pledge to always clean up after their dog, and carry extra dog waste bags so they can give a bag to anyone who finds themselves without one.
How do you become a Green Dog Walker?
There’s a major publicity effort behind this initiative, so that the public is aware of what it means.
If you see someone wearing a Green Dog Walkers wrist/armband it means they have taken the pledge to:
- always clean up after their dog
- carry extra doggie bags
- gladly give you a poop bag for your dog – just ask.
It’s an interesting idea. Don’t want people beating each other over dog poo. Instead, make it known that you’re a friendly Green Dog Walker, ready to lend a hand (or bag, as it were).
Looks like we’ve found the South Poop of England, too.
Check out the site: Dog Fouling and Red Rubber Bands.
There’s some explanation for the ‘Red Rubber Bands’ that makes sense to the British, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. Whatever…
Lots of good stuff there.
And, it seems like their speciality is… dog poo music!
There have been many songs published on this blog. Needless to say, they have varied in quality. Once in a while, a good song thrusts itself at us. I can truly say this of this rendition of “Poop my Shoe”. It almost had tears welling up in my eyes. I love the way it doesn’t focus just on dog faeces but covers a broad spectrum of animal deposits. I challenge you to listen without experiencing a wide range of emotional reactions.
We heard about Dog Fouling and Red Rubber Bands on the BBC Scotland show ‘The Scoop on Poop‘ (audio available until 2/27/12). Take a listen.
Please, let the French explain it to you:
No, the dog poop is not fertilizer! For what has the slightest interest in the land, it should be composted.
The poop left on a green space has no benefit to the parks or gardens, on the contrary. The urine burns the grass and dog droppings can remain for several weeks before disintegrating, which poses a real health problem. It contains germs, bacteria and parasites that are harmful to human health but also for all the dogs that shall put the nose to it.
The least we can say is that dog poop is not a decorative element that friends of the gardens enjoy, and what about its effect on children playing in the grass in the spring or summer?
It is also an issue of respect for the work of the gardener. They do not like most that pedestrians have the dog poop underfoot.
That’s why even in green spaces, it is essential to pick up!
This video has been around a while. Pretty weird.
うんこ保険いかがですか？投票受付中｜Please Vote to Dog Poop Insurance!
Yes, it’s real –
Ever stepped in dog poop and ruined your fave kicks? Well you need Sneaker Freaker Dog Poop Insurance! Thanks to our mates in Japan, Sneaker Dog Poop Insurance could become a reality. All you need to do is watch the video below then VOTE. If we get 100,000 votes a Japanese insurance agency will actually offer this service (we’re not making this up!).
16,414 “Yes I love it” votes as of Feb 13. Looks like they won’t have enough to go forward with the plan.
Too bad for sneaker-wearers everywhere.
You may have heard about a plan in New Taipei City, Taiwan to hold a dog poo lottery last year. The idea was for people to turn in bags of poo and receive a lottery ticket in return. The prize – ingots of gold.
Turns out the plan was “a big success“.
We checked and found this BBC report from last December:
A woman in her 50s won the top prize – a gold ingot worth $2,200 (£1,400). […] The woman who won is among a team of neighbourhood volunteers who already helped to clean up the streets, including by picking up dog mess.
The BBC’s Cindy Sui in Taipei says that it has been credited with halving the amount of dog mess in the city, which is near the capital.
They say the city simply cannot afford to keep exchanging dog poo for gold.
You think?
Too bad for everybody.
But it makes you wonder – could a lottery like this be implemented anywhere? You don’t have to give away gold ingots (yes, “smaller gold ingots, worth several hundred dollars, were given to four other prizewinners“). What if you just had ‘normal’ prizes, like a coupon to your favorite eatery?
How about the South Loop Poo Lottery?
Certainly would bring international attention to Chicago, maybe the City boosters would go for it…
Shanghaiist thinks it's a great idea, too.
It’s sometimes, uh, interesting to review the search terms that led to South Poop. By far the most frequent is
what does curb your dog mean
and, by far our most accessed post is ‘Curb your ‘Curb Your Dog”. But here are a few of the other terms used over the past 30 days:
beautiful flowchart
revenge on people who dont pick up dog shit
유니코드 “pile of poo”
ergonomic goat poop scoop
teacuppoo
so dachshund glad you’re here someone pooped in the hallway
you are only worth as much as your dog’s poop
the best ever poop area designed for a dog
immoral purpose dog shit
A pretty vanilla rant about poo from a blog in Norway…but you gotta love the picture:
I call it "Beauty on the Beast"
Thanks to Keep Britain Tidy, the English did it first, but did they do it better?
Now, folks in Colorado are trying it:
But as we all know, there are poo fairies and poo angels all around us.
Like Poop Fairy on Facebook. Or not.
There’s a blog out of Canada that came to our attention when its author commented here (when we first started). She had clearly thought a lot about dog poo, dog parks and dogs in society. It’s worth checking out: the DogKisser Blog.
Here are her posts about poop. This author has a ton of observations that are relevant and useful to us.
Example: the need for trash pickup and bag supply to raise compliance. Otherwise, any policy is neglectful and disingenuous:
What do I think would raise compliance and make people start picking up their dogs’ poop?
- Poop bags at all entrances to Point Pleasant Park.
- GARBAGE CANS to put the poop bags in – and people to EMPTY THE GARBAGE CANS.
- City staff in the parks to FINE PEOPLE who DON’T pick up their dogs poop.
Those 3 things would raise compliance by about 1000%. Right now people know that they can get away with not picking up their dogs poop. So why should they? If there’s no consequences – there’s going to be NO COMPLIANCE. It’s pretty simple.
You can put all the flags in poop that you want. But if you don’t give dog owners some tools to deal with the poop – you’re being VERY disingenous. And unfair.
Example: poo should be considered best as litter; but dog owners are judged as a class:
I liken dog shit to Tim Horton’s cups – people throw them away everywhere – and you see them everywhere, but you’d never consider shutting down any Tim Horton’s coffee shops because of people throwing away their cups irresponsibly instead of putting them into garbage receptacles. Simply because you can assign a niche demographic to place blame on – does not mean that you can shut down access to public space to the whole of that demographic for the irresponsibility of a small minority.
That is completely wrong – and non-sensical as shutting down every Tim Hortons because of their cups being thrown away on street corners. It’s exactly the same thing.
p.s. What’s a Tim Horton’s, eh?
This is too cool. We now have an internationally recognized Unicode character ‘PILE OF POO‘.
The bad news? The only font that I can find that supports this new, internationally recognized, and computationally defined character symbol for Poo is ‘Symbola‘. That’s fine, I guess. You can download the font files and install them on your own computer so that you can write a Word doc incorporating the symbol. But it means that we can’t use this symbol on our site because your browser probably won’t support it! (You just get this: 💩) And that is just sad.
Interestingly, in the comments at BoingBoing (which is where we learned about this fantastic development) a commenter notes that ‘Pile of Poo’ is a Japanese emoji character, and is a carry over of the migration of emoji characters to Unicode. So it may not be that someone thought ‘hey this would be a useful symbol to have!’ – although another commenter notes that:
It was typographer and alphabetician Michael Everson, Irish representative to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2, who proposed that character name, which expresses the intent of the character (while other euphemisms were proposed, he tells me, none were nearly as apt).
But we think it’s great!
Looks like the South Poop of NYC!
Presumably coming to you from Park Slope, Brooklyn.
This is a cool site – take a look. Lots of pictures with that special sophisticated New York flair!
More art than analytical, but sometimes, you need some art, doncha?
How about this, for example –
“a deconstruction of the notion that poop, when abandoned, deconstructs”
Only a Po-Mo Art Student from New York City could have come up with a sentence like that!
(You might also be interested in the fine photography at another NYC site – Dogs Shitting on Sidewalks)
We posted about Takkie Kakkie, the family game a while ago. 
Now that it’s been available on Amazon for a while, there’s some bad news.
The newer reviews for ‘Doggie Doo‘ (as it’s called in the US) are not that great. Seventeen (17) one star reviews??
Here are some:
If the little plastic dog is ‘constipated’… well then the game can’t be much fun, now can it?
That seems to be the take-home from these reviews – and we’re all poorer for it.
But there’s also this review from ‘no prude’:
Really? You want a game about dog poop?
I’m no prude, but unless your goal is to teach your kids that being crass is cool and potty humor will advance their character, why would you spend a nickel on this product? This game lowers the bar for preschool and elementary children.With so many positive and educational choices out there, save your money and pass on this ridiculous game.
Feh.
Lady, take a pill and start picking up after your dog. If there ever was an idea for an ‘educational game’, this one was it.
From the Village Voice, of all places –
Yet in one neighborhood, reports F’d in Park Slope, the shit has gone past hitting the fan and is instead being bagged, along with a kindly urban etiquette note asking the poo-creator’s (a/k/a, dog’s) owner to please stop letting the dog go to the bathroom in the “tree pits” and then also, to please stop just leaving the poo there.
Forget Questo, Swedish Design House, even Foscarini.
Just take a look at these dog poo bags and weep:
“Turn the less attractive moments in the life of a dog owner into an original happening.”
Buy them here: http://www.poopoobags.com/
(via lovelypackage.com)
Science meets poo. Poo loses.
The AshPoopie is coming!
What is the AshPoopie, you ask? We’re glad you did!
Behold:
Quite simply, the AshPoopie turns your dog’s poop into a sterile pile of ash.
♦
the girl and the dog they were fine
until they left a doody, that’s a crime!
♦
Dog Doogity deserves its own post:
Indeed!
Internet content slave branmil93 has generated a beautifully butchered essay on poo bags:
Have you been worn out of one’s canine helping himself throughout the spot? Will you be tired of stepping on canine waste when you walk around your house or compound? Do you think you’re exhausted of having dog poop in your way while you have on your good highly-priced sneakers? Perfectly there is an answer to this difficulty which is by investing in dog poop bags.
These bags are a revolution for dog entrepreneurs that have stubborn dogs that don’t poop in the right put. These bags are superb and fit your every single day desires. That you are in a position effortlessly do waste management.
This is awesome. More over the fold –
Continue reading ‘The excellent characteristics of dog poop bags’
The city takes action… in Leeds, UK.
So what did it take?
Peter Haddington of Prospect Place, Bradford was reported to Leeds City Council’s dog warden service after three witnesses saw him fail to pick up after his dog, on a two separate occasions in Calverley Park, in January and February this year.
He’ll have to pay “a £100 fine, an additional £655.25 in costs plus a £15 victim surcharge“.
“Victim surcharge“??
For you Americans, £770 is about $1245 US dollars.
Yes, that’s a lot!
In San Francisco, CA, “Bernalwood Resident Besieged By Rogue Dog Poop Issues Emergency SOS”
More from our friends at Snohomish County, WA.
We hear that they have some good ‘shrooms out there. How else to explain some of their creativity?
Like this:
Or, as they would say in Pune, India, “Loos for Pets”.
So, is this an idea that will go over in the South Loop?
Dog toilet design
A urine block is made using rough soil and fine sand. For dog excreta, special chambers covered with mesh that will be easy to use are planned. “We need to avoid unwanted use for any other purpose. We also want to avoid dog fights inside the toilet compound area, as some dogs can be quite aggressive,” Gore said. “The importance of these toilets shall be described to citizens. Training certain dogs to make use of these places is another task we wish to begin.”
Indeed! This is really a lovely idea…
And it seems to be a serious proposal!
“The authorities are thinking about it,” said Gore. With 4,000 registered dog lovers facing problems of health and hygiene, the initiative has been welcomed. Gore’s plan is to begin with a ward at Nigdi Pradhikaran or Chinchwad station first. Each pet toilet is estimated to cost Rs 50,000 and, according to the proposal, at least 12 to 15 shall be installed at various spots.
To lift the picture and caption illustrating the article – Are they toilet trained?
The story from Vienna, Austria has an intriguing headline: Vienna Stuck In Dog Poo Debate
One blogger said she assumed the posters were showing chocolate cupcakes when she first noticed them before realising what the idea behind the campaign might be.
Looks like a serious campaign though – quoting from the article “Around 2,800 dispensers providing free plastic bags have been set up across the city in the past months.” That’s a serious effort.
Anyone wonder if Chicago is up to matching Vienna?
http://twitter.com/#!/QueenB_SODMG/status/74995376976961536
Can we conclude that Jesus Himself would never pick up His Dog’s poop?
Those New York City Artists are at it again! 
Then : : : SPRINKLE BRIGADE : : : is the place for you!
Over the fold to check out some of their awesome ‘pieces’!
Finally! A nicely decorated Poopsta. Works great!
So, this is some cool direct action – an artist, Jay Shells, who’s made a reputation for producing etiquette graphics in the NYC subway system is putting up hand-drawn posters about cleaning up poo!
It’s an interesting approach – the posters are being put up on temporary construction walls, and he screws a dog bag dispenser into the sign.
This is an awesome idea!
Washington Heights Poster Reminds Dog Owners to Clean Up After Their Pets:
Artist Jay Shells, maybe better known as the man behind the ‘subway etiquette’ project, has undertaken a new campaign targeting dog poop, installing large, colorful, hand-painted posters street side, reminding people to “clean up after your dog”
“Funny action against heap” – that’s the Google Translation of “Lustige Aktion gegen Häufchen“, the title of this YouTube video.
Kackel helps dachshund – Funny action against heap
Thanks to Google Translate for this:
What man is fun, he does like too. The action saubergemacht@maintal.de took up this theme. The volunteers were given the children’s game “Kackel dachshund” as a thank you for their commitment.
Thus, the tedious collection of the heap was turned into a fun action. 65 Maintaler therefore helped with the first day and gained 3 kg dog pile.
The game “Kackel dachshund” sets an example and shows how to deal with the pile of dog – because winning is who is the first to fully dog pile of a shovel.
Taboos such as animal faeces fascinate children, and that is used for the funny Goliath thrill of his game: The cube in turn decide whether to feed the hungry, the players Kackel dachshund for a walk or go to.
Then hopefully the unspeakable happened!
Might work for younger kids.
Somehow I don’t think that the teenagers are going to go for this!
Here’s the announcement (again, thx to Google Translate):
On Tuesday 14 September is the opening event on the campaign “saubergemacht@maintal.de” on the Main Dörnigheim meadows in Maine, level of Mühlheimer ferry instead. The supporters of the initiative do sensiblisieren Maintaler the citizens, especially all dog owners and dog-holder, to the problem of dog waste on playgrounds and Gewegen, in parks and public green spaces. By participating, can win in the opening event of something: The Family Game “Kackel dachshund” Goliath of the games publisher, which addresses a funny way, the problem with dog waste.
Location: Maine
Homepage: http://www.maintal.de
Insane as this is, I think it’s is a good project!
& what a great phrase! Maybe we’ll can use it as a slogan: ‘South Poop – Funny action against heap!’
An interesting headline from Upper Providence Township, PA:
The subhead? Closing of dog park causes big stink.
The interesting part is this claim:
Officials said that there was so much poop in the park that lawn mowers contracted by the township refused to go in after it clogged their machines and sprayed excrement up the drivers’ backs.
… it clogged their machines and sprayed excrement up the drivers’ backs !!!
But there’s enough information in the (short) article to get some sense of the failure of policy – not enough trash containers at Reynolds Dog Park, and those that were available weren’t emptied frequently.
Still, you gotta wonder what people were doing to cause poo to ‘clog up the machines‘!
The park has a Facebook page. Check it out.
Another ‘good one’ from our friends at the Snohomish Co, WA Dept. of Public Works, Surface Water Management Division.
Click on the image for a full-size copy of the poster.
We were alerted by JohannTheDog to an awesome post at All Over Albany “It’s Winter. Your dog has pooped. What now?”
Well, we’ve thought a lot about this issue. And we finally came to the conclusion that winter somehow impairs the ability of some people to make good decisions about whether they should pick up their dog’s poop.
What a beautiful flowchart to help you make your decision!
It’s nice that you are provided with many options, including ‘Think of the Karma’ and ‘Wow, you really are a jerk!’.
It’s also nice that a PDF version is provided for easy printing. Let’s see some of these printed, laminated, and posted on the fences of the South Loop in coming months!
And, check out the comments.
DJdubJay – And hey… guy with two large dogs who just moved to the 100 block of Lancaster, can we talk for a minute? … Since you moved here, the ratio of “clean” sidewalk to steaming piles and grainy smears has rapidly been approaching an awful kind of fecal singularity.
Awesome!
Gretchen – As the owner of a puppy who loves “poopsicles,” I hate these people. Even good dog owners have had to leave a poop behind on rare occasions due to running out of bags, but, while I’m certainly not an expert in poop identification, I see what looks like evidence of repeat offenders on our regular route. It should be legal to pelt these people with snowballs.
Poopsicles!
Jen – @Rebecca is absolutely right that feeding a good diet is crucial. It really is terrible when you are walking a dog who poops four times during the walk, with each one getting progressively more pudding-like and hard to clean up. Good quality food makes for healthy poops that are easy to pick up!
Pudding-like!
Thanks AOA!
First, let’s look at some numbers.
According to its Press Statistics page, Facebook has 500 Million Active Users. 
250 Million of them log in on any given day.
According to the AVMA, 37.2 % of Households in the US have dogs.
(That’s 43 Million dog owning households with 72 Million dogs!)
Wordwide, let’s say the percentage is less, how about 30%? And let’s make up that there are 2.5 Facebook users per household.
That means that there should be 200 Million Facebook “Households” worldwide.
And there should be 60 Million Dog Owning Facebook Households – worldwide! Let’s hope that at least one member of each household picks up their dog’s poo!
So how come the Facebook page “I love dogs and care enough to pick up my dog’s poop.” has only 16 Likes??
That means that there are 59,999,984 missing ‘Likes‘!
Or, more accurately, if 75% of the population (using US statistics) is classified as ‘Urban’ (who cares where Fido goes on the farm), then Forty Four Million Nine Hundred Ninety Nine Thousand Nine Hundred Eighty Eight additional people should be ‘Liking‘ this page!
From their description:
Calling all dog lovers! This page is a simple public declaration that DOG OWNERS DO CARE enough to pick up poop.
One simple click on ‘Like’ is all it will take!
Give it some love – if you’re on Facebook, take a look at the page, and Like!
#1: A great post yesterday at the fine Pet Connection blog: Poop parity: Do your share and then some
The best way to prevent transmission for you and your pets is to regularly pick up not only your dog’s feces from your yard, but to pick up piles someone else left at the dog park or in your neighborhood.
Yes, I know it’s disgusting and it’s not fair.
I know you don’t have to do it, and ohmydog what did that dog eat?
It’s a call for Poo Angels, as we know them. Poop parity! There’s an interesting Comments thread, and an important issue is raised:
Can someone answer me this – why is it my gag reflex isn’t triggered by my own dog’s or a friend’s dog’s poop, but a cold, lonely orphan poop sends me into gag hell?
Great question, and a true one – my dog’s poo doesn’t smell! 🙂
#2: Watch out for I Scoop Mad Poop! Mad Poop showed up with a flurry of tweets last month. They look to be an ally in the good fight. Keep it up!
#3: By now, most of you have probably heard: “Dog eats Rockford man’s big toe, saves his life“. Be sure to read the Comments section! ‘Just some of the “teachable moments” in this story’ Ha ha ha! Awesome!
And why do these morons figure they need to kill their dogs just for chewing off their rotten toes – yes, this has happened before!
This is awesome – we hear from the John Kelly’s Washington column at the Washington Post about Wayan Vota and his dog Taxi, fellow orphan poo activists! His bag of orphan poo was pretty heavy.
Ha ha ha check out the video!
This is similar to what some of our park Poo Angels have reported in Chicago (e.g. at Grant Bark Park), too – when you start picking it all up, you end up with a lot of poo in the bag! Nobody pays attention to this, of course. We’ve tried suggesting that they post a record – “bags of orphan poo collected today” – at the entrance to the park. Maybe we could get a small scale, and make it a game: How big (or tiny) is your pup’s poop? Who’s got the biggest poo today?
There’s a sign hanging above a streetside garden at Roosevelt and State. What do our neighbors at Dearborn Park mean?
The phrase ‘Curb Your Dog’ originated in the 1930’s in New York City. Citing (from barrypopik.com) the Chicago Daily Tribune, 4 December 1938, “Mostly About Dogs” by Bob Becker, pg. F10: “Curb Your Dog” Good Advice:
“In New York, truly a doggy city, an ordinance has been passed to make for a cleaner city and at the same time compel the indifferent dog owner to consider public welfare. The ordinance demands that dogs be curbed. There are signs everywhere with the request, “Curb your dog.” It means that owners cannot allow their pets to soil buildings, nor can a dog make a nuisance of himself on the grass of the parkway or on the sidewalk. As a result there are practically no complaints about the dogs soiling sidewalks or grassy places which the public uses.”
That is, ‘Please Curb your Dog’ meant ‘Don’t let your dog do its business on the sidewalk. Let your dog do it in the road’.
Makes sense.
Here’s another sign typical of the Chicago Park District:
Signs like this appear at the entrance to parks, and even have appeared at the entrances to CPD Dog Friendly Areas. What in the world do our helpful and overworked sign makers at the Park District mean?
A dog is sniffing a flower. The dog will never escape the 10 lb link chain around its neck.
‘Let your dog sniff the flowers’? We need a sign for that?
‘Control your dog with a 10 lb link chain’? Vicious Froufrou might go wild!
Text of a Chicago ‘nuisance’ ordinance fills the bottom of the sign:
“An ordinance prohibits dogs to be permitted to run at large or to commit any nuisance upon any sidewalk, parkway or public park. Ordinance Sec 30-7-2”
‘Don’t poop on the grass’? Could be… but where is Froufrou going to go?
‘Make your dog poop in the gutter’? What, in a park??
‘Clean up after your dog’? Well, if you read it into the text… maybe.
It’s not enough to state, ‘well of course they mean…‘ – because there are three or four different meanings of Curb Your Dog in common usage. Using the google, it’s easy to find them.
There’s the original meaning (to cause to keep near the curb: Curb your dog.) – ‘do it in the road’:
Here: There is also the gentle reminder to, “Curb your dog!” meaning “Please have your dog do its business at the side of the road.”
Here: To lead (a dog) off the sidewalk into the gutter so that it can excrete waste.
Here: There are signs everywhere with the request, “Curb your dog.” It means that owners cannot allow their pets to soil buildings, nor can a dog make a nuisance of himself on the grass of the parkway or on the sidewalk.
Here: Existing city law literally prohibits pet owners from permitting dogs to defecate on any public property; however, in the past this law has been interpreted to mean that defecating dogs should be “curbed” – kept off the sidewalk – and even this interpretation has not been rigorously enforced.
Here: It also commands the owner to “curb” his dog, which means that the performance so crucial in the life of every dog owner must take place in the gutter and not on the sidewalk.
Here: Dogs can be trained at an early age to go on the curb, but there is no guarantee that they are always going to make it. More important: forcing a dog off the sidewalk and into oncoming traffic can be very dangerous, needless to say.
There’s a second meaning that’s consistent with common usage of the word ‘curb’ (to control as with a curb; restrain; check) – ‘control your dog’:
Here: The term “Curb Your Dog” basically has two meanings. One meaning is to keep your dog under control and out of trouble … ie; keep your dog leashed and/or confine to your property as to keep them from causing trouble for others.
Here: I asked the John to curb his dog so it didn’t get hurt by the grate or knock me over. John curbed his dog a little but the Jaxon was so anxious that he was uncontrollable.
Here: He has been asked several times to please leash and curb his dog.
There’s a final meaning, this one is a ‘secret code’ – ‘Pick up after your dog’:
Here: It also means to pick up your dog’s poo when they are out of your property … EX: while on walks and/or at the local park you should carry plastic bags and watch for when and where your dog takes a crap and clean it up!
Here: There are several dog owners in our community and several “curb” or clean up after their pets.
Here: I ask her–in a polite tone through the gate, to please curb her dog. She tells me in such an emphatic tone “I AM picking it up!”.
There are also anomalous meanings – usages that are unclear on any concept – for example:
Here:
If “curb your dog” means to prevent your dog from defecating on the sidewalk or grass, then what does “do not curb your dog” mean? Should we force our dogs to defecate on their lawn? (And, while we’re at it, any dogs that wander past while we’re there?) Or is this mysterious sign the work of the Anti-Animal-Constipation League, telling us that it’s allowed (but not required) for our pets to relieve themselves there?
Ha ha ha! So ‘Curb your dog’ is understood by some to mean: ‘Poo your dog’!
Yikes.
Our guess is that the Dearborn Park I sign means ‘do it in the road, anywhere but here‘, and it seems to be a legitimate request that should be respected.
And our guess is that the Chicago Park District sign, even though it reads ‘no nuisance on any sidewalk, parkway or public park’, means ‘pick up after your dog‘ – clearly, doing it in the road in the park makes no sense.
But these usages raise some questions. Do we really want dogs to leave their poo at the ‘curb’? Is dog poo left in the road really going to be OK? Maybe let the rain wash it away or wait for the street cleaners to come by…?
Most people probably would prefer not to step in poo to get to their car.
♦
If we are to pick it up, why use what is clearly an ambiguous code for ‘pick up your after your dog’ (e.g. in the parks) instead of something more direct.
Like ‘When your dog poops, pick it up’. Like ‘if you own a dog in the city, you pick up its poo’.
The message of ‘Curb your Dog’ is: We’re afraid of poo. We’re afraid to say poo.
But if we’re ‘afraid of poo’, then the failure to pick up by some dog owners is completely understandable. They’re not a@*h#les. No, they’re just like us. Afraid and uncomfortable talking about, much less picking up, poo.
One of the arguments of this site is that we can change this.
A first step is to be grown-up about what we’re asking. Use direct and honest language – and make it clear that if you own dogs in the city, you agree to pick up their poo.
Our signage should reflect this.
‘Curb your Dog’ should go.
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