Pathetic, Sick, DISGUSTING, Doggie

[2 Devils]

Melanie - yeah not everyone has a yard. I get that but I also don't think it is right that someone allows their sick dog to have bloody diarrhea in someone else's yard. You can't really clean that up. When someone does have a yard and their won't go in said yard because it never really has leads me to believe that sometimes people are more willing to dirty someone else's lawn than their own. And no I would not expect you to have the dogs go in the bathtub.

 

If the poops are firm and easily picked up then no problem but if you have a yard and your dog is sick, the dog should stay home.

 

Chesney - they think the dog ate a dead animal while at the park. They aren't sure what was eaten so who is to say that is what made the dog sick. It may or may not be infectious but sorry that I feel sick dogs should stay home when possible.

 

My yard is not pretty. I don't have a ton of grass or flowers but I also don't want someone letting their dog crap in my yard especially if they aren't picking it up. When you live in the country it happens often and it is annoying having to watch where you step in your yard when your dogs don't even crap there.

[mbc1963]

I know better than to respond with emotion in online discussions like this, but respond with emotion I did. My apologies. No one else needs to get emotive on my behalf; as I said, my ruffled feathers are flat again, and I'm fine with my own behavior.

 

My take? The truth is that the world is an incredibly unsterile place, full of the poop, hair, saliva, exoskeletons, and shedding cells of every organism that creeps, crawls, walks, scurries, and flies. Not to mention millions and millions of decaying things - microscopic and visible - that we can't even begin to imagine. Coyotes and foxes run my neighborhood at night - none of them dewormed or vaccinated. Cats roam loose, and no one even pretends to think about cleaning up their poop. We've got rabid skunks and bats zooming around. Birds pooping their hearts out around bird feeders that attract pooping squirrels. Plus those very icky toddlers, who touch their own butts and noses, and then have the nerve to kiss other humans. You could sterilize yourself with a rubbing alcohol bath, and your skin would be repopulated with bacteria within hours. It's just a dirty, dirty world. Out of our control. C'est la vie.

 

I pick up poop when we walk because poop is ugly and smelly, and leaving it is bad for neighbor-neighbor relations. Also, in large quantities, I suppose it could become a health problem. (Though when I was a kid, everyone just left dog poop where it fell - and none of the neighborhood kids ever died of an infectious disease, despite running barefoot over lawns all summer.) Even though I carry poop bags everywhere I go, I don't imagine I help to make the world clean and sterile by picking up the poop; the ground stays as dirty and bacteria-laden (and pretty much harmless) as it ever was.

 

My dog walks up and down dog-trafficked streets every day. There are poop remnants and outright poop everywhere we go in the neighborhood. The only two times he's gotten sick have been after eating something dead, deep in the woods, far from the traffic of pooping dogs.

 

I do deeply believe that modern Americans (all westerners, maybe) live with a false belief that they are at great risk of contagion from all things not sterilized. Probably a product of the commercials that are always telling us how to sanitize and de-germ our homes. Not a healthy cultural mindset, IMO.

 

Mary

[Shetlander]

And you know, oddly enough, my dogs did not constantly come down with odd intestinal ailments, nor have they ever had the sorts of weird allergies and food incompatibilities that everyone else complains about their dogs having on these boards. I even raised a puppy in the middle of San Francisco with no yard, and she has never been ill at all. Not once.

 

You are fortunate indeed. And apparently not one to worry about tempting fate. I hope you never need to deal with those weird allergies and food incompatibilities. They're no fun.

[vanillalove]

I forget who said it but they said something about how it is not public property, it is private property. Well, I live in a city as well, and the way my neighbourhood is set up is that we have our front yard, and then you hit sidewalk, on the other side of the sidewalk is a slim patch of grass and usually a tree before you hit the road. It's sort of just a common thing that those trees and that grass is where walking dogs can relieve themselves and you are expected to pick up after yourself. I think everyone does a pretty good job as well, sometimes if you forget a bag, a passing dog walker will often say, "Oh don't worry, I got it". Everyone keeps mentioning "going in another persons yard", but if I can picture a city-type area where Mary lives, and like Melanie, it isn't really someone's private yard, it's just the other side of the sidewalk before you hit the curb, that you don't really care about. It's not really set up the way more rural areas are with connecting yards or land. I would say that if I lived there and someone came into my yard to let their dog take a crap, I'd be pissed about that because that is my private property and my real yard. But in the city, and in all the cities I'm familiar with, those little grassy islands are sort of just shared property among dogs, if that makes sense. (Just read now, Ooky said the same thing about "easements")

[2 Devils]

I am in the country. We don't have sidewalks or street lamps. Someone has to actually walk into my yard, have a dog on a flexi or offleash to potty in my yard. When I am finding crap 10-15 feet into my front yard I have issue. There is a place a little further down the street that is "public" and rarely is the poop picked up.

 

When I was in a townhouse we had the same issues. The problem was it was never from someone on our court. I actually caught folks from another court allowing their dogs to put in my neighbors yard or mine on more than one occasion. If they saw you looking, they bent down with a baggie and pretended to pick it up. Our court pretty much banned together and kept a close eye out and when folks walked dogs in our court we made it a point to watch and if needed say something. Within a couple months we rarely had folks coming to our court any more. They went to another court and proceeded doing the same thing of not picking up.

 

Public areas vs private areas are 2 different matters.

[Krambambuli]

People don't realize how much of "their" property does not really belong to them, but the city or township. We certainly had no idea, until we had our property surveyed. And the strip between side walk and street is never private.

 

But anyway, I was just thinking that Buddy was already really distressed, probably in pain, and the "performance anxiety" of having to go in the yard when he is not used to that, made that particular night a poor choice to try and teach him otherwise. I understand the concern that he might spread disease, even though I'm inclined to say there was little chance to think that. But in order for him to learn to go in his yard, if Mary wishes him to do so, he would have to be in a much better state of health and mind.

 

Actually I have a dog who thinks that the yard is not a proper place to do her business, too, and I have tried a ton of stuff convincing her otherwise. I ran into a wall, and wished I had one around the house instead. Sometimes she will pee in the yard, usually first thing in the morning, but poop -- no way. I am not saying this poses a problem, it's just sometimes annoying, especailly if it's pouring or there's a blizzard out there (and no, she does not relieve herself in other peoples' yards, I don't let her) -- but I am wondering if this is maybe a "single" dog problem?

 

And also, dogs that always go in their yard, do they have problems when you travel? Because that could potentially be the other side of the coin ...

 

Gosh, the stuff we talk about because of our dogs ....

[2 Devils]

My dogs don't have issues pottying when we travel...

 

Yeah dog conversations can be a tad "ewwwww"

[Krambambuli]

Yeah dog conversations can be a tad "ewwwww"

 

 

Only worse are the poopy diaper conversations some new parents seem to enjoy (emphasis on SOME).

[mbc1963]

Yeah, it seems to be a cultural divide - people who live in one kind of neighborhood don't know the "common law" among those who live in the other kind. The picture below shows my street right at the moment. (Current weather update: 6 to 12 inches expected tonight.) The white is pavement, covered with snow. There really aren't any front "lawns" in the neighborhood, per se. I think my house is maybe 10' from the sidewalk. It'd be impossible for my dog to fully extend his Flexi lead into a front yard; he'd bump into the house. And I don't even have one of those grassy strips outside the sidewalk; they took those away to widen the road. The classier neighbors up the street get those.

 

 

So, walking up the street with a kid or dog around here is basically parading by people's front windows. And the houses are on skinny, deep strips of land - my neighbors and I can talk to each other through the windows when we're inside the house. (Once, early on, my dog got all excited passing by this one house, despite his reactivity and fear of humans. I realized it's because he heard and/or saw the guy inside opening his refrigerator door!)

 

My brother lives in a "nicer" suburban development about a mile away. He came to see my house when I first bought it, and couldn't believe that other people would park their cars in front of my property. As if it was a scandal. (I guess in his neighborhood, it would be.) But on a street with a lot of multi-families, there are just more cars than there are driveways, so people park where they have to. It's really not a big problem. Nor is it a problem that we walk our dogs up what little strips of grass we have along the street.

 

Honestly, if someone couldn't deal with the "closeness" and "common ground" feeling of the street I live on, I think they'd have to move into a different kind of neighborhood. But it's really not hard to adjust to the culture of the neighborhood, and even appreciate it. Laid back. Live and let live.

 

Mary

[Shetlander]

I think your neighborhood looks nice, Mary, though I admit to liking my subdivision which isn't tony but the houses are set a good ways from each other. In the 14 years I've lived here, I've never heard anything from any of my neighbor's houses even when I am outside. Toss in privacy fences and other than hearing each other in our backyards, we're all in our own little worlds.

 

How is Buddy doing, by the way? Better I hope! Those GI disturbances can be very grueling for all involved. Interesting that he refuses to potty in his own yard. My Shelties were the opposite and both went through phases where they didn't want to potty if they weren't at home. That made overnight trips stressful. I remember some nights walking them for over 45 minutes hoping they'd finally relent but having no luck. After several such late night strolls, I finally decided they'd wake me up when it was too much for them and I let them be as retentive as they wanted to be. Eventually they became less freakish on the subject.

[powerfulgazelle]

Mary---

 

Your neighborhood looks lovely! Especially with the snow...

 

I understand what you mean...our neighborhood is similar---in the city, houses are all 85-115 yrs old, the lots are long and narrow, postage stamp front yards.

 

It makes for a different way of getting along than seems to happen in the 'burbs.

 

I work out in the ex-urbs----McMansions and office parks, no sidewalks, no big trees. I am always glad to get home at the end of the day, back where the surroundings have some texture to them.

 

Hope Buddy is better and that you have some cocoa lined up for all that snow!

[afrancis]

... I'm thinking that the scent actually serves as some sort of intestinal trigger - a neural connection that makes dogs defecate where others have gone. (Could be both: an evolutionary behavior that served a purpose in the wild, to such an extent that evolution favored a bodily reflex that encouraged the behavior?)

 

Had to comment on this Mary, though I hadn't been following all the hullabulloo earlier. Skye, when she's let out back while in intestinal distress in the middle of the night like your Buddy, will go round and round and round looking, I know, for the last place she pooped before relieving herself. It seems only that place is the right place. So I wonder too if there isn't a physiological trigger that takes place, since clearly she really wants to go and appears to be getting more and more frantic looking/sniffing. This is also what she does when we're out and about -- the same place almost every time.

 

I wonder if the evolutionary behaviour couldn't be related, unlike peeing which definitely appears to be marking, to picking a 'safe' place, since the contents of one's poop tell a lot more about one's health and overall fitness, hence, vulnerability in the wild. The times I have seen Skye, and Riley for that matter, attempt to cover her poop was when it was particularly runny and smelly.

Ailsa

P.S. And I agree; your neighbourhood looks lovely -- much better than a new subdivision IMO. Is your house in the pic?

[mbc1963]

Thanks, guys - I do like my neighborhood. It's old school. Also from 1880s to 1920s. They must have figured, in those days, that they should put all the land behind the house, where it was more private. (I kind of get that - a front yard isn't usually where you entertain and play - so why waste valuable land on it?)

 

Buddy is well, and enjoyed the snow today.

 

Back to the theoretical: I'm wondering if the poop-trigger thing isn't related to some sort of pack need? Keeping their "remains" together for some reason - maybe to avoid having it fall near their home ground, or maybe to show their strength or something? Or maybe getting dogs to go more or less at the same time, when hunting in one large pack would be an advantage?

 

Gross topic, but interesting for me (science teacher).

 

Mary

[Shetlander]

They must have figured, in those days, that they should put all the land behind the house, where it was more private. (I kind of get that - a front yard isn't usually where you entertain and play - so why waste valuable land on it?)

 

I agree. The largest part of my lot is in the front and 14 years after moving here it still seems like such a waste to me. The only good thing is I think it contributes to a quieter house with the cars a fair distance away. It really is pretty tranquil around here.

 

Glad to hear Buddy is doing well.