Poop Wars

I worry that posting another blog with something related to my pets will pigeon hole me as a pet fanatic or a cat lady or some other such character and I should probably try now to defend myself, but such is life.

I walk Bella everyday, usually twice, once in the morning for about an hour and again for a half hour after dinner. My dinner, not hers. So Monday night we're out, just before dark, thanks to the time change, and she's already done her business in the open space behind the housing tract, which takes up about 5 acres. Now we're heading into the neighborhood to do a routine one mile loop.

I'm wearing my ipod, which I haven't worn before on a dog walk because I think it's important to hear cars when I'm walking the dog but tonight I've decided for reasons I do not know to throw caution to the wind, and have Bella on the stretchy leash, which I often do on neighborhood walks despite all the bad things that dog trainers have to say about them. Bella stops at the first house on the corner to do some serious sniffing. She's got her nose to the ground, and I've somehow wrapped the stretchy leash around her back side. I tug it, and she doesn't come. I look back, and see that it's pulling behind her back legs, making her squat as she moves slowly forward. I start to walk toward her to unwind the leash when I hear something. I remove one ear bug. Clap clap clap. Huh?

It's a man. He's standing outside his front door and he's clapping at me. "Clean it up," he shouts, "clean it up!"

"What?"

"The dog poop. Clean it up!"

"She didn't poop."

"Yes she did. I saw her squat."

"She didn't poop. She's caught in the leash."

"I saw her squat. Clean it up!"

Now I'm getting frustrated, and honestly, a little angry. I regain my composure, stand up straight, and shout back at him.

"You know what, I ALWAYS carry bags with me. She did NOT poop. Come see for yourself."

More words were exchanged, but they got us nowhere. Eventually he went back inside, and I continued on my way, but I'm certain he came out to inspect the lawn after we'd turned the corner.

Now I'm not saying there aren't bad dog owners, cause there are plenty. I do carry baggies, most of the time, and in the one case when Bella pooped on a lawn and caught me unprepared, I walked next door to a neighbor working in his garage and asked if I could have a baggy. His wife happily retrieved one for me, and I scooped up the poop and proceeded on our walk.

But this guy really got under my skin. Was he sitting by his window watching for rebel dog walkers? Does he really have nothing better to do?

The couple who lives in the house across the street from me has three Jack Russell terriers. I like to call them jack terrors. They like to poop. Everywhere. All the neighbors have witnessed them doing their business on the lawns yet no one has ever seen the owners clean any of it up. It's a free for all.

The owners are nice enough people. Mid-thirties, I'm guessing, married, no kids. Their wireless provider shows up on my server as thomas69, with Thomas being their last name, and I think that's tacky, but it's a free country, right?

Right?

I noticed two small new piles of dog doo on my front lawn yesterday, no doubt the byproduct of the jack terrors (I live at the end of a cul-de-sac), and I think this time I'm going to do something about it. Something against my nature. Something...passive aggressive.

I'm going to conduct a clandestine poop re-depository mission under the cloak of darkness. Unfortunately I have a large bright street lamp over my driveway and lawn, so I'll have to wait until midnight or so, after which time I intend to shovel up the dried scat and toss back where it belongs...on thomas69's lawn.

I'll let you know how it goes. In the mean time, I'm thinking about making up a special lawn sign for the poop Nazi and surprising him with it. Something straight forward like, "Clean Up Your Poop" or just "No Pooping." Or maybe, in the spirit of diversity, it should be a picture instead of words - a squatting dog circled with a line through it.

P.S. I should tell you all now that this isn't my only blog. I have one other that I blog on more often, but it's sort of of well um private. More a journal, really, a place to vent without anyone I know reading what I'm venting about. A blog of anonymity. My apologies for truancy on this blog.

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