Fido’s Little Gift

There are a lot of people with dogs in my neighborhood. Many of those people walk their dogs around the neighborhood every day. All of those dogs crap somewhere along that walk.

And their owners pick up that dog poop with little plastic bags.

Incredible.

I can just imagine a caveman from thousands of years ago, or a knight from the 1100s or an American settler from the 1800s seeing a full grown man or woman bend over to pick up their dog’s poop. The look on their faces would be priceless.

“Did you see that? That human being just picked up the waste of a mongrel!”

“I know, I know. And they put it in a little bag and then put it in their pocket. Into their pocket, I say!”

“It’s madness. Let’s get out of here.”

I can understand if your mutt drops their load on the sidewalk. That’s where people walk. So, yes, pick it up. I don’t want it on the bottom of my Birkenstocks. It’s a bitch to get out of the grooves on the bottom of the sole.

I can even understand if your mutt ventures into someone’s yard and does their thing. A man’s home is his castle, and his yard is part of his home. So, yes, pick it up. If anyone’s going to defecate in their yard it will be their own dog, not yours.

But when Fido leaves his gift of love in that swath of grass between the sidewalk and the road, then just leave it. That’s what dogs do. They poop in the grass. And I think the patch of grass is county property anyway.

I’m surprised dogs today don’t have serious complexes. If they poop in the house they get swatted with a newspaper and if they poop outside their owners quickly scoop it up and hide it away before anyone can see it. Dogs have to be thinking, what’s this horrible stuff coming out of me—every day—that is so horrendous that it either gets me a spanking or my owner is so embarrassed he has to immediately hide it?

What if people raised their kids like that? We’d all be going to therapists once a week.

I get the whole PC thing. Be considerate of others. It’s why we bus our own table at McDonalds. It’s why garbagemen are called sanitation engineers. It’s why we take down Confederate statues.

But you’re using your hand to pick up animal waste. Sure your hand is encased in a plastic bag. But that plastic is mighty thin.

I have a dog, Boudreaux. He’s a miniature pinscher. Weighs about 10 pounds. We just let him out in the front yard. When he goes it’s the size of a marble. You would need a CSI team to find it in our thick St. Augustine grass.

And that’s how it should be. Because I’m sure the hell not picking it up.

EXPO deal 1