I Can’t Believe We Still Need To Talk About This, But Please Pick Up Your Dog’s Feces | Matt Reigle

Having a dog is a major responsibility. It’s not quite as big of a responsibility as having a kid though. With a dog, you can put it in its crate if it's misbehaving or you need a break. You do that with a kid and CPS will probably come a-knocking.

However, I’ve always argued that for a brief period of time, having a puppy is worse than having a human baby.

Human babies cry and don’t sleep through the night. Puppies do that too, but do you know what else puppies do? They destroy your possessions and urinate and defecate all over your house. Then, somehow, that’s your fault for not training them better.

There are several basic responsibilities one gets with a dog. They need water, food, exercise, and the occasional trip outside to pee on anything another dog has ever brushed up against since Bill Clinton was in office.

Most people can handle those, but what shatters my mind is how many people just flat-out refuse to pick up after their dogs.

I get it. Believe you me; I get it. No one wants to pick up poo with nothing but a thin plastic bag between them and a day of near-constant hand-washing. However, last time I checked, we lived in a society (although I haven't checked in a while; that may have changed). That means when walking your dog through public spaces, clean up after your pooch. We don't need the dog park turning into a minefield of fully-digested Purina.

For those that live on their own slice of land, maybe it’s not a problem. As for apartment dwellers like myself, this is a major problem.

I think that for the most part, people follow rules and signs telling them of those rules. Yet, the people who refuse to clean up after their dogs are some of the most brazen lawbreakers around.

Don't be the kind of person who sees a sign and trash can setup like this and then pretends to not know what it's for. (Getty Images)

At my apartment complex, there are more than enough signs pleading with residents to pick up their dog’s leavings. If the sign wasn’t good enough, they also have free bags and a trash can attached to the sign.

It could not be any more on your mind and easier to do, but still, monsters walk among us. Monsters who decide, “Meh, I’ll just leave it.”

What’s worse is that for some reason, it seems to be owners of big dogs who decide to let their pet's coils rot under the blazing hot sun of a Central Floridian summer.

I’d kind of get it if someone’s chihuahua left something behind that no one could find unless they were on their hands and knees picking through blades of grass like a chimpanzee trying to pick a tick out of another chimpanzee's fur.

If you need a magnifying glass and tweezers to clean up after your dog, you get a pass. Typically, that isn’t what happens though.

People leave massive piles on the ground — that might even get picked up on satellite imagery because they're so large — as if to thumb their noses at the rest of us law-abiding citizens. It’s just like when a serial killer sends letters to taunt the police.

I’ve spotted abandoned coils that look like they were left behind by Marmaduke after a late-night Taco Bell binge while I was standing on the other side of the street. Anyone who leaves that behind is a psycho.

It’s maddening. For some reason, people get more disgusted if there’s a straw wrapper laying on the ground than they are if there’s a pile of dook in the communal park area.

Everyone likes dogs. Don’t believe me? Trying walking a dog without every chick in a 2-mile radius coming up to you to say hello. They’re chick magnets, but that doesn’t mean you can get one then to cherry-pick the responsibilities you're willing to handle.

I’m reasonable about this. Ideally, you’d throw the bag of poo away in the provided trashcans, but honestly, if it’s not in a common area, I don’t care what you do with it. If you want to use a pooper-scooper lacrosse it into a neighbor's yard, be my guest. Go ahead and light it on fire on your enemy’s porch if it makes you happy.

All I ask is that you don’t leave it where I walk.

That's because I’d prefer not to spend (another) afternoon using a toothpick to clean the treads of my Crocs.

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