We love dogs; it’s their owners we often take offense with. Living in a ground floor loft with a private entrance in New York City has its challenges. People allow their pets to use our front door as a urinal, and it is not uncommon to find a little “gift” sitting on our threshold as we step outside in the morning. It is amazing to think that pet owners are so oblivious that they allow their dogs to do their business on people’s personal property, and not even bother to clean it up. I seriously considered retaliating with dirty diapers when my daughter was a baby, but two wrongs don’t make a right, do they?
The people of Madrid feel our pain! They launched a huge campaign to remind owners to pick up after their pets. When they saw only temporary success from their mobile poop trolling the streets, (yes, motorized plastic dog poop with signs reminding people to clean up after their dogs) they took the scheme to the next level.
Agents were hired to follow citizens and identify the offenders. The poop was then scooped, and boxed. The agents then approached the dog owners, and engaged them in conversation, finding out the dog’s name and breed. The information was entered into the town’s registered animal database, which revealed the name and address of the owner.
The poop was then mailed back to them bearing the return address of the town’s “Lost and Found Department,” with a note letting them know that next time there would be a find. Incidences of dog fouling decreased 70% in the region since the program began.
We might just have to try this one sometime!
photo: glasshouse images
Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest too
Tags: cleaning up after pets, dog owner etiquette, dogs, Madrid, pets, poop, pooper scoopers
Indigo jones 
July 13, 2013 at 10:20 am |
Greetings! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a team of
volunteers and starting a new initiative in a community in the same niche.
Your blog provided us valuable information to work on. You have done a marvellous job!
July 15, 2013 at 7:37 pm |
I wish you all the luck in the world, but hold little hope that it will work! My experience has been that the good dog owners are always responsible and always pick up after their dogs. The bad dog owners could not care less what you think of them and never pick up after their dogs unless directly confronted (and sometimes not even then) or punished financially. They will just walk their dogs at night and let them poop under the cover of darkness, and leave the pile there. I still wish you luck anyways. Please come back here and let us know how the experiment works!
July 17, 2013 at 11:24 am |
What always gets to me is how fast these complaints turn into a free for all against all dogs and all owners. I posted about how I always pick up my dog’s poo and someone posted that they don’t beleive me. And then people start railing against how someone let their dog wander into their yard. Newsflash, this is not standard dog owner behavior any more than every single driver on the beltway is looking to cut you off. There are assholes among every population. Anyone who let their dog run into someone’s dog and then acted beligerantly about it qualifies as an asshole. But the way some of you are going off about all dogs, etc, you just sound like you’ve got a personal vendetta against all dogs or those of us who own one. The thing is, dogs are going to be a part of your life or not. I’m sure it takes much more effort to be nasty about it than it does to be nice. Oh, and by the way, the woman who put the dog poo in the neighobor’s mail slot? That I love. If someone is clearly NOT doing their part, they should get called on the carpet. But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told to “pick up my dog’s poop” by some busybody before the shit even had a chance to hit the pavement. To anyone passing by it probably looked like I wasn’t going to do it anyway, which I was. So maybe if some of you back off a little bit, you’ll still have to deal with the occasional turd in your yard, but you might just find yourself a little bit less high strung in general?