My wonderful downstairs neighbors have a wonderful doggie. He’s half german shepherd, and half rotweiler, and the best dog I know. However, being such a big dog, he makes some mighty fine, and mighty big doggie dung dumplings. I’ve been cleaning up what my neighbors miss for quite a while now, and even tried getting them a five gallon bucket labelled “The Poopie Pail” (it was “stolen” while full… I have my doubts). This Friday, I stopped one of those “Party Stores” while driving around, and picked up a package of 30 American Flag toothpicks. When I got home, I wandered around the yard, and put a flag on each “lawn lozenge”. On Sunday, day 3 of the experiment, I had only two flags left, and a very poopy, yet patriotic yard. I spoke with one of my wonderful neighbors, only about 6 feet from one of the flags, and he still hasn’t seen it or done anything about the poochie poo pocked yard. Whenever they’ve seen me cleaning up after the doggy in the past (I only clean up several hours or days after the manure mounds have been crafted- I don’t want the dog to have a complex over this) they always have apologized, and then cleaned up after their dog whenever I’ve been around during the “event”.
Currently, every time I look into the yard and see those flags, I get a really nice case of the giggles. I’m actually hoping it doesn’t get cleaned up, because on Thursday, I’m getting some cocktail parasols in, and I’ll be starting with those.
Anyone else use creative solutions to solve neighborly disputes?
Wonko you sound like a very patient, good-natured person and your latest strategy cracks me up.
I live on an urban area with tons of dogs and we ourselves have two English Mastiffs (it’s like cleaning up after a horse.) In our back yard, we have the dogs trained to only go in one spot, but the front yard is anything goes (but they are only in front under supervision.)
All of we dog owners do sort of police ourselves in both behavior and poop cleanup. We especially want to be kind to the non dog owners. But there are two households that are very lackadaisical in both care and cleanup and ruin it for everyone else. Their dogs roam, poop and bark.
People have confronted, left notes, even called animal control. The most recent thing is bagging the poop and leaving it on the front doorstep. You’d think that five bags of poop at your front door would have some effect, but it has been minimal. Maybe the burning bag of poop (you know,the paper bag full of poop
that gets stomped on.)
It is close to Halloween.
As of this morning, all of the flags are still there. I have to go get more flags, as I only have two more left. Caprise- if the rogue dog is friendly enough, perhaps the pouch of poochie poo could be attached to the collar. That would get some attention!
The thing is, I love dogs (no, not that way), and my neighbors are quiet, friendly people. I don’t like the used dog food in the yard, and that’s it. I even make a habit of buying the dog downstairs doggie treats, which naturally only add to the dung deposits, but he’s such a nice dog. He rarely barks, never jumps up(unless you ask him to), and doesn’t beg food off of you when you’re snacking.
I bet your Poopie Pal was just thrown out when it was full and not stolen … unless you have some very weird theives or someone wanted some fertilizer.
Anyway, how much expense do you want to go to? You don’t say how you have to scoop up the poop but if you don’t have a nice handy “pooper scooper” you could get one of these. You could also invest in a “doggie dooly” system. It’s a pail that is partially buried in the ground and you put the poop in there along with some digestive enzymes and it gets broken down and returned to the soil. Since it’s partially buried it’s less likely that one would steal it and since they can just scoop the poop and then forget it, instead of bagging it and taking it to the garbage, maybe it would be easier for them to comply. It just depends on how nice you want to be and how much you want to spend, a “doggie dooly” system and a nice scooper might run you about $50.
Otherwise, since the dog is half German Shepherd and Rottweiler perhaps German flags might be more appropriate?
I also suspect that the original “poopie pail” was actually thrown away. The current poopie pail is actually an official red biohazard pail, (courtesy of the workplace safety dept) complete with the logo. Throwing that away would be fraught with peril, and possibly a fine, so I think I’m safe. I think the doggie dooley solution is a nice one, but I’m not spending fifty-six clams for the thrill of having a special hole that nobody will throw shit into, and therefore a still shitty yard. I did consider it though- it’s so gadgety!
However, I went to another party store, and bought a gross (144 for those metric folks) of tropical drink parasols. I’ve used 37 in the back yard, and it’s quite festive. To keep the tropical theme, I removed the crap crusted patriotic flags. Mostly I stuck to yellows, reds, and greens, which match the grass and falling leaves, but a few hot pinks are out there.
I was thinking of these for next time. They’re so much more festive!!
Do you have a landlord or an owner’s association? Might be time to talk to them. If you can get any swizzle sticks in the shape of flamingos, that would be cool too.
I’ll see what I can do about the pictures, I don’t have a digital camera, but I do have a film one, and the walgreens does a “photo CD” rather nicely. I’m off to the backyard to take some pics.
Very funny! I’m guilty of poor poop patrol myself. And I have three dogs, two of which are Great Danes. I can just see my yard ablaze with little markers!
I can’t think what to call them, but do you know those little whirly-gig things that spin in the wind? That might be the next step.
And now I believe I better go do what I call dog-duty.
After deploying over 40 parasols, the poo has been picked up. I did get pics though. I should be able to get them on the net by thursday or something. I got some great pics of tropical poopie.
