I have submitted this to our local village's mag and also will be putting posters up around our group of villages :)
I was just sick and tired of the poo :rolleyes:

What do you think :D

Title :My Christmas Day Walk Horror

Author : Concerned Dog Owner/Mother from ****** (Anon)

I am becoming more and more dismayed by the amount of dog fouling in the ******** Villages. I have been a dog owner for 20 years and have lived in ******* for nearly 10 years and have always taken a responsible attitude and cleaned up after my dogs. You will always find me with bags in every available pocket and always clean up after my dogs. I was even caught in an embarrassing situation a few years ago where one of my dogs had a bad stomach and the deposit was unfortunately not a consistency that was easily picked up by a bag. I sent my daughter home and she came back with a full watering can with disinfectant and a broom and cleared it all up.

There are a group of irresponsible people that seem to have no social conscious and seem to think the pavements of the villages are their own personal dog's toilets.
Dog faeces carry many germs that can cause illness and in extreme cases could result in blindness.
It is both offensive to smell and to look at, and is extremely unpleasant to step in.
 
A good example of the growing problem was a walk we had on Christmas day last year where in between the Red Horse pub in ***** and our home in *****. We counted a total of 15 dog poos on the pavements along the route. I was flabbergasted that what should have been a lovely walk turned out to be lets dodge the dog poo game. Other examples are people who tie their dogs outside the Coop and let the dog poo whilst they are in the shop then walk off without cleaning it up or the alleyway by the local pub. Lovely when it is so dark that you are unable to 'dodge' the poo. Many children and older residents regularly have to walk down there.

With this in mind I feel compelled to start to do something about this. I am starting a Neighbourhood Watch Dog Fouling scheme. I want to get together a group of like minded responsible people that will take an avid and more active watch on people who allow their dogs to foul and fail to clear it up. We need to name and shame these people and report them so they get the appropriate punishment of a maximum fine of £1000.
Please join us by not being afraid of reporting these people as they need to made accountable for the anti social behaviour they are blatantly showing with out any regard for fellow villagers.  
It doesn't take much to take a bag out with you and pick the poo up. If it is too difficult the you shouldn't be owning a dog.
If anybody else is interesting in joining us then please get in contact by e-mailing to poowatch@********villages.co.uk Lets stop these people and make our villages a dog fouling free zone !

I would suggest rather than reporting (where identifying the culprits may be an issue) that the owners should be approached with a bag and shamed into clearing up or you will call the authorities.

The idea is for this is the treat rather than actually happening as don't think it is a good idea to confront people. They are a rough crowd out here in the Cotswolds ;) :D

I have a very clean street but over the last month it has been profusely pooed in by a small/med dog (I can tell by the size of the poos!)  If I see who it is I will shame them and if they don't pick it up when challenged they will get it deposited in a bag on their door step.  Grrr!    It is really annoying when the behaviour of some ruins things for the majority as all dog owners get tarred by the same brush.

The size of the poos are varied and different colours and consitencies ( ok I have been doing some poo research as well :D :D )

So difficult to pin point one particular dog/owner :rolleyes: I have my suspicions but difficult to prove it without doing 24 hour survellance :)

lol, my research into the pooh perpetrator says cheap food (sloppy poos), medium sized and lives nearby as poohs are within a 200m stretch of the road.  How sad - what happened to my exciting glamorous life?

Don't be fooled by the distance as one of my Labs alway likes to poo in a certain area if we are lead walking which is about 3/4 of a mile away from home :D

Yes the poos left around here are also from a bad quality food in the main rather than my two girls lovely hard small poos which are a dream to pick up :D

A dream

A dream compared to sloppy poo which is likely to squidge out of a bag when you try and fold over the bag once you have picked the poop up ;) :D

never have poo emergencies again..............http://www.amazon.co.uk/Poop-Freeze-Spray-139g-115ml/dp/B000Q6J2YS   :)

A really great idea.  I too get very angry - it reflects so badly on responsible owners.  Do let us know how it goes.

Louise

Ditto here, I take 4 or five out at a time so hate walking past a pile as the next person walking the other way will assume it was mien.  If I can bag after that many what excuse do other owners have not to.

When the kids were babies I hated getting dogs mess on the pushchair wheels and having to Park it in the house with  sleeping baby or leave outside until I could clean them.

I often run up with a bag and sweetly ask if they have run out of bags, and watch as they grumpily clean up.

Agree with CheekyChow about being tarred with the same brush.  I take my gang to a caravan by the sea, where dogs are allowed on the beach.  I end up walking with bags full of dog turds while pet owners with one little dog look the other way while their pet dumps.  It makes me seethe.  Mainly because I realise that enough complaints would get dogs banned from the beach.

I saw a bloke ahead of me with a mastiff let his dog poo and not clear it up, you can imagine the size of that! He was a bit too far ahead to call out 'excuse me would you like a bag for that' and also I admit to being a bit scared in case he or the dog had a go at me!

Great Idea!

If I see someone not picking up there dogs mess I make sure the look I given them lets them know they have been seen!! :D

LJS, won't your council put up signs on lamp posts?  Of upto a £1,000 fine, if enough complaints are made they are bound to do this. The neighbourhood poop watch is a brilliant idea. :-)

Your letter is very good, can I make one suggestion to be really picky, from I who writes essay's myself. :-D  Your letter in the local mag is fine, but if you are going to stick your letter up around the village, I would personally shorten it, I'm very guilty myself on seeing a bill or notice of more than a paragraph of switching off or only part reading, that might just be me though :rolleyes: but to get your message across, there may be other me's out there, (scarey I know! ) so perhaps one solid paragraph would be better for the village reading. :-)

I tend to offer a bag to those who seem about to run - and watching them fume can be very entertaining :D :D   I have also been thanked profusely by people who have been 'caught short' :)

Personally I'd like to see a highly publicised nationwide "get caught picking up" campaign :)  whereby people caught by wardens picking up dog poo win a prize (say £50 :) it has to be enough to make it worthwhile )  I feel it would be more likely to succeed than trying to prosecute and fine  people and would be much easier and cheaper to administer ;)   I doubt it will ever catch on tho as the stick seems vastly more poplular than the carrot with most authorities :rolleyes:

My dog warden always stops his van when he sees me out with mien and when he saw me picking up one day stopped the van and got me out a whole box of official poo bags.  these would have been strong enough to hold my shopping and lasted ages.

My won council (Bristol City) provide very few dog bins, but the adjoining council (South Gloucestershire) seem to have a bin on every bit of green outside flats bigger verges etc.  It is most appreciated, as when walking in that LA's area I never have to carry bags of poo far.

We already have signs up and loads of poo bins, just too many lazy ignorant people about. Yes the Posters are going to be totally different and will be very eye catching with a very interesting background ;) :D The Parish council are aware of what I am doing as well :)

At my loal park I have noticed more and more poo lately - I don't know if it is because it is dark and people do not see their dog doing it or what.  It also doesn't help when the many poo bins around are hardly ever emptied though and there are piles of bags around them on the floor.

Years ago, there was a woman in Dundee (Altho she was a bit of a looney tunes) who made little sunflower smilies on sticks and stuck them in left dog poo to highlight how much was being left in one particular place and then got the local press around to photograph the said 'floral display' - don't know if it worked or not as I don't live in Dundee but it certainly must've bought the problem to attention!

(Altho she was a bit of a looney tunes) Any inference that I am the same :D :D

Oooooooooooooo would I dare say that on a public board - behind your back maybe???? ;)  :D  :D  ;)

Great idea and excellent someone has the bottle to do something about it. Since you are yourself a dog owner, it's clear you are not against dogs but against poo being left all over the place.
Good luck with it!

An update. I have had several people contact me in support of this and have also been contacted by the local PCSO who wants to meet up with me to discuss the issue and provide support by putting posters up and doing more patrols to see if they can 'educate' some of the offenders :-)

Nice to see that it has generated some support ;-)

Good for you.  I like the smiley stick idea.  It particularly offends me when someone lets their dog leavings sit right in the middle of a snowy trail.  Somehow that brown blob in the nice white snow (we cross country skiiers call it brown klister - doesn't slide worth a darn) is worse than brown on brown.  Yesterday we found a big, fresh pile and the lady of a dogless (only because their old fellow had passed away) couple I had just met up with scooped up some snow and covered it but left it on the trail.  I thought I should say something - better uncovered so people can see to avoid it, than camoflauged - but I let it go.  On the way back, sure enough, it was flattened and streaked down the trail.  I felt badly because I bet it was the young couple with their baby in a pulk who ran over it.  Maybe I should start carrying a trowel.

I was fed up with all the poo at the side of our fence which goes along to the local park, i have asked  one lady if she wanted a bag which she took gratefully but havent 'caught' any others.The Council screwed a nice 'please pick up the poo' sign onto my fence and someone stole it by ripping it off through the screws!