A Question for Dog Owners

[stopbush]

Why is it that you walk your dog down to the neighbors' yards to crap and pee? Why is it that the worse the crap is, the less likely you are to clean it up?

Why not have your dog crap and pee all over your yard, get it ALL out of their system and THEN take them for a walk?

[lukasahero]

1. You'd have to ask those that do that

as opposed to "Dog owners" in general, I suppose. :shrug:

[cwydro]

2. Yeah...

this is going to go well.:popcorn:

[stopbush]

4. You're right. I should have addressed my post to "most dog owners."

[hobbit709]

3. And you have never had to crap and pee when you leave home?

[EndersDame]

8. I pretty much think animal droppings of some sort is to be expected out of doors

I do scoop the poop for my pup

[cwydro]

20. Yeah, the OP should live in MY neighborhood..

we have free range chickens and iguanas lol.

You haven't lived till you step in iguana poop.:rofl:

[Orsino]

5. It's because the neighbors' dogs have used up all the good places in MY yard.

Fair is fair.

Of course, what you're experiencing may be a consequence of Rule Zero.

[old mark]

6. I always had my dog shit on the lawn of nearby churches.

Probably still there.

mark

[Arugula Latte]

11. Hah hah!

I hope they're Baptist or Mormon or hardcore Catholic churches. Leave the nice Unitarians alone, though. :)

[old mark]

16. Ain't no Unitarians in my neighborhood......

but I'm an equal opportunity dog shitter.

mark

[EndersDame]

7. Some of us don't have yards. I make it a point to pick up my dog's poop since

she has a tendency to eat poop :( and I feel that it is bad manners. Do you get upset at bird droppings or deer scat as well? Animal poop of all kinds is to be expected outside

[JanMichael]

9. We only let Scout do that on obnoxious neighbors yards....

;)

[Cant trust em]

10. The question should be aimed at the dogs and not the owners

Hey dog, why can't you just pee all in one place?

[Duer 157099]

12. The dogs also have a role in this

I would let my dog out in my own yard prior to any walk, to make *sure* she did whatever imminent business she needed to, and yet, without fail, she somehow managed to muster up a new deposit for some location along the walk.

Drives me out of my mind! So, it's not always only the owner's fault, the dogs have an agenda here too.

[madmom]

13. I have two neighbors who insist on taking their dogs for "walks" on the school property. One always

goes to the school playground the other to the football field. Both dogs are on leashes so it IS up to their owners where they go. It really pisses me off and my kids don't even go there anymore.

[LisaM]

14. I always clean up after my dogs

But one thing that you should understand is that part of what dogs do is mark. They don't just mark their own house. They mark to let other dogs know they've been there. They also, and this is important, mark so that if they are lost they can find their way home.

Our boy dog, and this was true of our other boy dog, liked to establish his perimeter. He would invariably try to save up his poop for the farthest point of the walk and do his business when we turned to go home. It's one of their tools to help themselves have familiar boundaries. I've read that dogs can smell where they, or other dogs, have marked for years after the fact.

I'm sorry that the dog owners you know don't clean it up, but there really is a biological reason they don't only go in their own yards. And I can also tell you that if you see a dog peeing on a tree in your yard, it's probably on top of the pee of 50 other dogs.

I had a mean man yell at me one time. Our neighborhood does not have sidewalks. I don't let my dogs into peoples' yards, but some people plant bushes, etc. right up to where the street is. My poor dog peed in front of this guy's house (of course he had bushes and gravel right up to the street) and this grumpy man yelled, "hey lady, don't let your dog pee there! How would you like it if I came and peed in your yard?"

I concluded that people like that just really don't like dogs.

[stopbush]

17. We have sidewalks in our neighborhood. so owners should be able to curb their pets,

like people did without any problem when I lived in NYC.

The leashes are also a problem in our neighborhood - why does a dog need a 25-ft retractable leash? It allows them to wander deep into our yard and crap. Then, the owner reels him in and off they go AFAP.

[LisaM]

18. They're probably only 16 feet

Still, this is an owner issue. The dogs themselves have good reasons for not wanting to only use their own yards.

All the people I see walking their dogs in Seattle clean up after their dogs. In fact, most places I go now, I see this. It's kind of odd that everyone in your town doesn't, or as high a percentage as you are indicating.

[stopbush]

22. I live in SoCal. I have no doubt that many dog owners consider their pet's poop

part of the "natural" landscape. I'm fine with them thinking that as long as they allow any canine addition to the natural landscape to pile up in their yard, rather than mine.

[elehhhhna]

15. i threatened to let my elkhound out if that lady stood there in my yard

watching her dog poop one more time. she (they) stopped.

[la_chupa]

19. walking/running just seems to shake those bowels loose

I dunno why, but that's why I carry poop bags when I run with my dog. As for him peeing, please why do you care about that? Are you licking the grass or something?

[cwydro]

21. yeah...it's pee mail!

My dog checks all her mailboxes regularly.

[Kali]

23. love that term!

just heard it for the first time this morning from my sister - a city dweller with a dog that needed to go out and check her pee-mail, so we had to get off the phone:rofl:

[Kali]

24. tight fences make better neighbors?

bag it up and follow them home, leave it with a little note saying "you forgot this"