While out and about with my dogs I find myself pondering over the problems faced by responsible dog owners like what I am. My main concern is how to balance the requirement for cleaning up after your dog and being kind to the environment.
If you are in a public place, say a street, park or anywhere else where other people might walk, it's pretty obvious that should your dog embarrass you by squatting and depositing a 'present', you whip out your little blue/green/peach baggie and clean it up. (unless it is has diarrhoea and then you're in BIG trouble!).
BUT - and this is where my query lies, what are the rules when in fields?
Once I was out with my dogs in one of the big open fields near our house, there is a public footpath but I was a few feet to the side of it in the longer grass. One of my dogs squatted as another dog owner walked past. I got a glare from her as I walked off without cleaning up.
You see, my point is that had I used a plastic bag to scoop up the poo, tied it neatly whilst trying not to get anything on my hands and then carried it carefully for the next 40 minutes or so until I got to a waste bin, I would only have contributed to the zillions of other poo baggies clogging up our landfill sites.
My opinion is that every other animal, insect, and bird poos out in the open field so as long as it isn't on the actual footpath, surely in open fields it makes sense to leave it to decompose naturally along with the rabbit, fox and other animal waste.
Bag it n pick up. If in middle of countryside walking through cow horse loo etc leave it. Wish the person who has dog with biggest bowels ever would pick it up from the guinnel
ReplyDeleteOur garden backs onto fields through which there is a public footpath and the place has turned into a dog cess pit. The farmer has stopped turning his sheep and lambs into the field as the lambs pick up parasites from the dog poo. So I suggest you think of the farmers.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments. I hadn't thought about the farmer as the fields aren't used for livestock in fact they are all gradually being built on and they aren't used by that many dog walkers. But I will certainly take it into account in the future.
ReplyDeleteI think you should always pick it up as other people are also walking around there and who's to say they won't stand in it.
ReplyDeleteI think common sense has to apply. The people who hang their poops in bushes are the worse offenders and we have a responsibility to be responsible dog owners, however when I'm out and about for instance in woodland, and my dog fouls away from the path I confess to leaving it. Unlike some owners who allow their dogs to fowl the paths. Now, what are your thoughts about horses that foul the pavements. I know its more organic, but my dog has never, ever left that much poo anywhere......
ReplyDeleteThanks ex pat and snowdrop. As for the horse manure... I don't think horses should be allowed on footpaths at all. Apart from the mess they leave behind, and how they churn up the path I have on more than one occasion be forced into a hedge due to them coming along a narrow footpath - and they seem to think they have right of way. Now wait for the horse owner backlash.
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