Today I am joining in the “Scoop That Poop” Blog Hop sponsored by my friends, Sugar the Golden Retriever, GeoGizmo, and Garth Riley. Thank you to these sponsors for bringing attention to this important, not so often talked about subject!
Poop is not a real fun subject, but it is an important topic that needs to be addressed since dog poop is not going away! The average dog will produce around 274 pounds of poop each year! That poop needs to be disposed of, as it is a toxic substance! Poop should not be left anywhere, but my post today is zeroing in on those landmines in yards. Humans flush right after they do their business, so why should dog business not be flushed/picked up right away as well?
Wearing my hazmat goggles and face mask to pick up poop!
The first thing humans need to learn is that there is NO poop fairy. We dogs will poop, and unless our human picks up after us, it will stay where we did it. Actually, it won’t stay there, which is part of the problem. As time passes, other creatures, and weather will transport it causing many different issues.
Every dog parent needs to figure out what works best for their lifestyle. We have our “no pooping in the yard” rule. No landmines at our house! Mom goes nuts when she visits someone and they tell her to watch out for landmines in the yard. Our policy since day one with Mom is to walk and do our business, then come home, and play in the yard. Mom says she has to pick up after us no matter what, so why not exercise and pick it up right when poop happens. We always enjoy watching our neighbors hunting poop in their grass with a bucket and shovel or in the winter chipping it out of the ice and snow. Poop is so much easier to grab right when it happens!
Mom says that poop is a bit like diapers – something you just get used to. She has no problem picking it up for us, but she does draw the line with poop from other dogs. To clarify, my friends are not considered “other dogs”, so she picks up after them too. To handle our poop pick up we have our “bag of bags”, a collection of plastic shopping bags without holes and we have a couple bag dispensers that attach to leashes, purses, belt buckles, and other handy spots. Mom has a stash of bags in the car, most pants pockets, her purse, she never wants to be caught bagless! Mom figures that for us two dogs, we leave three to four piles a day which means 21 to 28 bags a week. Add in a guest dog at my B&B and we are talking around 35-40 bags a week! Partly to save bags, and partly to make it easier than carrying more than one bag, Mom will pick up two or three piles with the same bag. We are lucky in our area because there are quite a few trash cans, so she uses the same bag until the trash can comes along. This saves at least 1/3 of the amount of bags.
Why is picking up poop right away, even on your own lawn, so important? Just one gram of dog poop contains around 23 million fecal bacteria and the longer it stays on the lawn, the greater a contamination it becomes! This bacteria is transmitted in three ways:
- Lawn care – if your lawn equipment or your shoes go through it, it spreads the fecal matter around your yard
- Flies – flies feet contain some six million bacteria, flies love poop, and pick up even more bacteria landing on it. Millions of other diseases are spread by non-biting flies
- Air, wind and rain – the air, wind and rain spread the fecal matter around the lawn bringing it to many parasites that live in the soil or wet areas, many of which can live a year or longer
I’m not saying that everyone has to walk their dogs several times a day so they can do their pooping, although lots of walking is good for the dog and the human. I want to make the point that poop should not be left lying around and should be picked up asap! If you let your dog out in the rain to poop and don’t go pick it up right away, that bacteria starts to spread in the rain water. Poop needs to be picked up!
Happy pooping and picking up!
Great post my furiend! We are proud to be pawticipating too. Picking up poop is impawtant!
It is important and so simple! Just do it!
What a great post Emma, filled with a lot of good points of why it’s important to pick up the poop!! I have to admit, I don’t pick up poop in our yard everyday, a few times a week, but now I will try and do it daily!
Thank you. Get those landmines (Newfs have more like mountains) picked up as soon as possible for so many reasons.
Very educational and an important post. Thank you Emma.
Transitioning from jail to poop patrol…where is my life headed?
Way to go Emma! We carry not only poo bags, but also a special little canvas shoulder bag where I can deposit the full poo bags, instead of carrying the stinky bags out in the open around the neighborhood. I would have joined this hop but I got so far behind in blogging the last few weeks…trying to catch up now!
I know what you mean. I usually post three times a week and I think I have five this week. So much going on in Blogville! Our problem is that Mom is so used to carrying the poop, she doesn’t even realize she has the bag in her hand!
Excellent blog Emma as always. When you read it in black & white like that it inspires me to pick up that poop in the yard everyday. Luckily jack does it on our walks, bu Maggie likes to go before breakfast – too early for the walk. You’re lucky to have lots of trash can on your route – we end up having to carry it for much too long…
Maggie can walk with us as we get up, work at the computer, take our long walk and then get to eat. By that point, we are near death from starvation but we have always done it that way.
Great post. Since we are usually out in the middle of nowhere, or a campground, mom gets our poop right away. Like you, we have a collection of poop bags in various places for convenience. Mom says you know you are a dog owner when there are poop bags in your pocket.
True, Mom has them everywhere!
Wez alway’z get he to pick my Poop up.. We have all those bag like you BOL. Great post Emma xx00xx
Mollie and Alfie
Happy pooping my friends!
Great post! 274 pounds of poop…. is a whole lot of poop. Dangerous poop!
I don’t want to get my paws in that pile!!!
Picking up after your dog comes with the territory. And it unfairly stigmatizes dogs when people don’t pick up after them. It ain’t a pretty subject, but it’s important to get the word out.
If we can get just one more pile off the lawn it is worth it 🙂
Oh Emma, your bag of bags looks like my Grandma’s bag of bags that she uses for her dog (and for when I am visiting). She has all the neighbors giving her bags…she is a bag lady. BOL Great post!! I hope more people start scooping the poop!
*Cairn cuddles*
Oz
My Gramma saves bags for us too but right now since Mom is using them for two piles, we have managed to cut down considerably on our usage. Happy scooping no matter what bag you use!
great post!
Thank you!
Me and Nalle make a lot of poop so Mama always needs lots of bags! 😛 WOooowooo, Ku
In one end, out the other – LOL!
We scoop when we walk, but the boys sometimes mow over the landmines in the back yard. When they do scoop, they take a bucket with a handle and fill it with the poops. They dump it into the compost or the trash can. No bags. Yes, we’re “those” people.
Oh dear…well, I guess with all that bird poop it gets to the point of not being such a big deal 🙂
Hmmm, maybe we should order some masks for Jan. Naw, she’s human. She can take it.
Sometimes Mom almost gets sick if it is too early but she is mask free.
Great point about everyone needing to find what is right for them & their lifestyle, Emma! I have had to try several different poop scooping and disposing methods before I found what worked. Plastic shopping bags have been banned here so that was one major change in our old routine! No matter what I tried until I got it right, I scooped, and that’s what matters most.
Exactly! There is one guy near us that walks this tiny dog in one hand and has a jumbo poop scoop for an elephant in the other. We can’t see any sense in it but he’s been doing it for years and it works for him I guess and he is picking up!
We use the biodegradable plastic poo bags since I figured that the feces would biodegrade with the trash.. Dog poo definitely needs to be picked up and not be left around for anyone to step on. For a while I could pick up often enough to flush it down the toilet, I also had one of those doggy dooly septic cans in the back yard for a while – never did get that process right.
I love the biodegradable bags but they are hard to find and I hate to waste money on something I am tossing in the garbage. Since we have so many bags from shopping, papers, etc, we use those.
Thanks for the scoop Emma, you covered it nicely!
Thanks…hope my post didn’t stink too much!
That was awesome! Love the hazmat suit!
Thanks…I sure don’t want any poop in my fur!
I will admit that at first I thought your no pooping in the yard rule was a little strange. I am growing to like it more and more though! It encourages extra walking of the dogs. Also, it prevents any smell in the back yard. I only pick up the poop out of the yard every couple of days and do notice a lingering smell after it has been picked up.. most certainly indicating that it, and some bacteria, has gotten into the soil.
Most people do find our rule odd and not possible, but even my guest dogs follow the rule. If you have good quality food you only make a pile or two a day, so that is only two walks (occasionally we have a 3 pile day but then two are on a long walk) For us it isn’t so much the smell but rather the thought of stepping in a pile that one moment you aren’t’ paying attention, not to mention that it is just disgusting having poop piles lying around.
Emma, you covered many excellent points on why it is so important to scoop the poop. Sometimes I think people are just unaware of the dangers.
I think your idea of not pooping in your own yard is pretty smart. No residue in your own yard to worry about!
Our two do poop in the backyard, and I pick it up at least once a day, sometimes twice. Fortunately, their poops are pretty dry and don’t seem to leave a lot of residue behind. But still, I know the truth. Even if you can’t see it, something is getting left behind.
Like your mom, we also have a “bag of bags” that we use… and like you, I use one bag for several poops. When on poop patrol in the yard, I wear a (disposable) glove to pick up the poops and they go into the bag, then the glove goes in the bag and it gets tossed. Even though I wear a glove to pick up the poop, I still wash my hands like crazy when I come in from poop duty. Best to be as safe as possible!
Love the pic of you with the mask and goggles! You really are quite the patient photo subject!
I love to pose 🙂 Poop is gross but it is part of life, so we just pick it up. When Mom had her first dog it was a big production but as time has gone on, it is no big deal, no more need for gloves, etc. After we get home a good hand washing but she would do that anyway. Thanks for coming by 🙂
One of my goals this year is to get the yard poop free and then stay on top of it. We do pick up on our walks but are bad about picking the ones in the yard up. 🙁
Great post Emma!
Thank you! We will always be fans of a poop free yard!
You made some very good points, Emma, and pointed out some things I just hadn’t thought of (I am like your neighbors, and yes, trying to get poop out of ice and snow is no fun). We clean the yard once a day, but you have inspired me to try and do better! And it would be much easier getting it right away, then trying to do the “treasure hunt” later (we have a big yard)! 🙂
It just makes sense to get it when it happens and forget about it. A long time ago when Mom traveled a lot she came home and had to hunt poop in the yard and just hated it since when she was home we always did it on our walks. In the winter it was the worst!
Thanks so much for joining us today Emma! You’ve made some great points and really emphasized the health reasons for scooping, besides the aesthetic ones…only one thing…you didn’t really mean ” we are talking around 35-40 bags a day” did you? LOL! that one just jumped out at me and i had to laugh
Maybe if someone has the runs 🙂 Whoops!
We do the bag o’ bags thing too. I find it’s the easiest way to pick up, and it lets us re-use the bag from the paper. Not sure what we’ll do once we end our subscription! You take the cutest pics, Emma! Even when the topic is poop!
Thanks! We use the produce bags from the grocery store too and Gramma saves her newspaper bags for us. We are always on the lookout for bags.
We keep a can in our yard and scoop with shovel and rake. It goes to the curb once a week. Of course brown dawgs poop on walks or in the park. We use bags for that. 🙂
As long as it is getting picked up. Hope they don’t poop during their training sessions! We had a husky friend that actually pooped while running!
Haha yes on occasion. The farm we train at does not want us to pick the poop up.
Thanks so much, Emma, for talking about this important topic. We have been taking the extra step of buying biodegradable poop bags at the pet store, and trying to use tote bags at the grocery store. The plastic bags that you get at the grocery store and drug store aren’t so good for the environment, and take something like a billion years to break down in the landfills. The biodegradable ones, supposedly break down the way organic matter does.
-Matilda the greyhound
We have some biodegradable ones, but we hate buying bags to throw out, we don’t buy bags for garbage either.
A poop fairy would be awesome! Mommy is in charge of poop duty at our house. We poop lots of big poops so mommy uses lots of bags!
Probably need those 40 gallon hefty bags at your house 😉
I’ve read a little too much about poop today, but I really enjoyed what you had to say about it, but more than that, your awesome picture!
Bunny
I guess at some point we are pooped out!
Everyone needs to scoop!!
Scoop that poop!
I will print out the sign for our dog park.
Maybe it will help!
That sure was a lot of information, thanks for sharing it – are you sure there’s no poop fairy though, cos Cosmo, and I, oh and also my Dad and the kids think it’s my Mum! Tee Hee
We’re good cos we like to go in the morning when we go on our main walk/run and Mum always has her bags attached to our lead…. maybe that was too much information?
Have a fun day
Your pal Snoopy 🙂
There was way too much information out there on the subject but it was good to get it out there for those that don’t pick up!
You are right about just get use to it … on picking it up. You are brave to get a photo so close to the trash (even though you are wearing a mask). Golden Thanks for joining our Scoop That Poop campaign. Lots of Golden Woofs, Sugar
It is a good campaign. We are lucky, most people around here do pick up.
Excellent points Ems! Its so true, poop and dogs go hand in hand. I’m allowed to poop in the garden but mummy has to send daddy little messages everyday to remind him to do a ‘garden sweep’ this is code for pooper scooping lol
Landmine sweep 😉
Awesome post Emma! Thanks so much for pawticipating!
I poop both on walks and in the yard, but either way mom picks it up. Funny you mention diapers. When our friends who live in the country say it’s too gross to pick up poop, mom says it’s no worse than changing diapers (actually, mom says that most of the time it’s much easier and less gross than changing diapers).
It’s awesome that your mom is so good about picking up after you (and taking you for walks!) If only more people were like your mom!
Garth
Thanks, Garth! Mom thinks diapers are nastier too! Glad you get out for walks and get picked up after. We feel sorry for dogs that don’t get to go for walks. Thanks for hosting the hop!
Da momma read your post, Emma, and felt guilty because she went a couple weeks *gasp* without cleaning up the yard recently because she was having a tough time with daddy being gone. But she always, always, always picks up when we are on walks or at the park! She hates going places, like rest stops on a road trip, and accidentally stepping in poo! She gets angry that her shoes are stinky. Angry momma’s are not good. Da momma cleans our yard every other day — we use fewer bags that way since Corgi poos aren’t that big. BOL
-Gwen
Thanks for stopping by. I know you guys are missing your daddy, but I yard full of poo will only make things worse. Glad your mom is back to picking up regularly. I am a dog and don’t like stepping in dog poo much either!