Street Talk »

Photo credit: Federico Coppola

Siri Svendsen

As a citizen in one of the world’s most populated cities, you are doomed to step into a dog poo at some point. On a five minute walk, you can easily step in to about eight of them – unless you are blessed with a generous helping of “never-steps-into-nasty-things-on-the-street-kind-of-luck”. The little bastards are waiting for you, ready to attack when it’s most inconvenient – such as when you are in a hurry and are running to catch the bus or the tube.

So why is it that, despite designated dog poo bins in London, you have to zigzag to avoid the faeces?

Roland Ward, manager and dog trainer at the Dog Training Club, says: “People know about the problem, it is just ignorance, they don’t bother.” Ward has been a dog trainer for over 20 years, and he says that the problem has increased. “On all my courses I emphasise how important it is to pick up after your dog. Obviously it does not work, or we would not have the problem”.

It’s not just the smell and the splash that are problematic. According to the company “Poop Scooper Services”, leaving poo in the streets can have serious consequences. The brown stuff gets diluted in rivers and groundwater, and may ultimately affect our drinking water. If a child touches a dog poo and uses the same finger to scratch an itching eye, the child may go blind because of a parasitic infection called toxicariasis.

They're out to get you. Photo credit: Yoav Lerman

England does actually have legislation regarding dog fouling. You can get fined as much as £1,000 if taken to court. In addition to this, some boroughs have started their own actions against polluting sidewalks and parks.

In Barnet they have a report system called Fix My Street. This is an online service where the citizens can report in a problem under the category “dog fouling.” In April last year you could read the following message: “There is an old guy with a German Sheppard who walks it really early and does not pick it up. It is on Gloucester road, Richmond road, Lyons down road.” It is still unknown whether the old man with a German Sheppard has started to clean up after his dog.

Zig-zag’ing round the turds is not just a problem confined to the streets of London. Around Britain there have been several campaigns against dog owners who don’t pick up after their dogs. In Watford they ran a campaign called “Flag the pooh” which included putting a small red flag in the pooh to highlight the issue and hopefully bring shame on the dog owners. In Mansfield they had the campaign “Pink dog pooh” where volunteers sprayed dog fouling with pink dye.

But So far nothing has worked. Is expelling dogs from society the only way to keep our shoes clean? Or do we need a London-based spray-paint campaign? Or, better still, a massive poo-fighting flashmob in Trafalgar Square? Chip in with your ideas and let’s see if we can beat a drum for faeces-free streets. But until that happens; be careful and watch your step.