I have a dog, therefore, he poops. Mind you, he only weighs about five pounds, so the level of poop isn’t as great as if he were, say, a Rottweiler. However, I still clean up after him whenever I take him for a walk.
I wish I could say the same for other dog owners out there.
Aggravated during a walk the other day after Little Rico, my dog, stepped in someone else’s doo, I turned my attention to the Internet to find out more. Not about poopie, per se, but about what one might “doo” to mitigate the thoughtless act of not cleaning up after Fido’s public display.
ScoopPoop.org out of Puget Sound has got it “goin’ down”; I say it like that because they’ve created a public service announcement to the tune of the great 1990s hit “No Diggity,” in which their spoof, “No Doogity,” is designed to “raise awareness about how cleaning up your dog poop will improve water quality in Puget Sound.” In this video, 1990s band Blackstreet follows around irresponsible dog owners, singing to them “We’ve got to bag it up now.”
And there’s choreography. If you head to their website, you can learn the official dog poop pick-up move in which you fling a poop bag over your head, grab the doodie and fling it in a trash can. Having been a former ballet and competitive ballroom dancer, I like to throw in a twirl.
If 1990s rap and dancing isn’t your thing for removing pet waste, I’ll turn your attention to China’s PooTrap, a device that straps to your dog’s hind half and makes “the world a difference.” I wish this was a joke. It isn’t. This website tells us that “Some dogs may want to poo when they are out for a walk. That is why they tend to take care business when they are taken out.” I feel that something is lost in translation. Either that or Chinese dogs are more well-behaved than mine, who would rip off the hand of someone strapping a “PooTrap” to his tiny bottom for “long-term and better results.”
I can’t explain it well enough. I urge you to visit their YouTube advertisement. This is also great at parties. I will say that I got interested in different ways to deal, so I turned to the Internet. I’m hoping that anybody who looks at my web history doesn’t think I’m a pervert.
In Cambridge, Mass., dog poop powers lights in a local city park. According to Wired.com, “Dog owners collect their dog waste in a special biodegradable bag and throw it into the digester,” a device that converts it to energy. Again, this is where I would get concerned that my tiny dog couldn’t generate enough electricity, but I think the inventors from MIT are onto something.
Other inventors are hoping to be more environmentally friendly by developing the “Ashpoopie,” a pooper-scooper that turns the trash to ash. I’m wondering also if you can then take that ash and press it into a diamond, similar to dna2diamonds.com, which will take the “cremains” of your loved ones (including pets) and turn them into sparkling memorial gemstones.
I could just hear the conversation now:
Mom: That necklace is gorgeous! Did you get that from GemTV?
Me: No, it’s Rico. And apparently he can now cut glass.
I guess the moral of this little tale is to clean up after your mutt. Is it so difficult to bend down and grab it with a baggie? I’m just as much as a germaphobe as the next gal, but come on. Let’s make things a little nicer for everyone else.
Holly Braithwaite is the communication director at Utah System of Higher Education. She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with her miniature pinscher, Rico Tubbs.
