Responsible dog owners clean up after their dogs with the use (mainly) of plastic bags. This isn't a big deal, as plastic carrier bags are free wherever you go shopping. However, the recent drive to ban plastic carrier bags has put dread in the hearts of dog owners – how the heck are we gonna pick up poo now?

Why We Have To Bother

In many places in the English-speaking world, laws are in place that requires a dog owner to pick up any doggy poo from their dogs (just from their dogs – it's not required for them to pick up the poo from other dogs). If you don’t, and you get caught, you get a hefty fine. Why is this?

The common argument is that doggy doo sometimes contains a roundworm known as Toxocara canis, which can (if ingested) cause illness and even blindness in people. There is an urban legend that dog poo is lethal to those with epilepsy. This begs the question – who is eating all of this dog poo? Supposedly, it's kids that don’t know any better.

However, the chances of a child getting Toxocara canis are minimal. When was the last time you saw a Toxocara canis poster child or a Toxocara canis marathon drive? A 2007 CDC report (PDF) estimates that 14% of the American population has Toxocara canis. But how dangerous is it?

In most cases, Toxocara infections are not serious, and many people, especially adults infected by a small number of larvae (immature worms), may not notice any symptoms. The most severe cases are rare, but are more likely to occur in young children, who often play in dirt, or eat dirt (pica) contaminated by dog or cat stool. -- WrongDiagnosis.com

Oddly enough, Toxocara canis is also in kitty poo, but there are no laws in place requiring cat owners to clean up after their cats (although some towns have leash laws for cats). It seems to be the burden of a dog owner to be a fecal collector more than a cat owner.

But until the public realizes there is no huge threat from doggy doo, dog owners will be required by law to pick it up. How are we going to do that without plastic carrier bags?

Future Options

The future is going to be full of dog poo if dog owners are caught in the Catch-22 of being legally required to pick up poo – but not have a means of doing so. Currently, options open to dog owners are:

• Paper bags: not an option. They don’t work. Think about it.
• Train the dog only to poop on the owner's lawn. Folks, this is an unreasonable request. When you gotta go – you gotta go!
• Buying plastic bags: but with prices for everything skyrocketing, do really think that's gonna happen?
• Buying biodegradable plastic bags from pet stores and online pet supply sites. Which begs the question – if biodegradable plastic bags are already on the market, how come current carrier bags aren't already made of them to be given out for free rather than forcing us to BUY them? And guess why they're biodegradable – they're made from CORN. That makes as much sense as does biofuel from corn.
• Using metal pooper scoopers, which are completely impractical when you are walking your dog.
• Freeze-drying the poo and then leaving it there. Made originally to help those with arthritis clean up after their dog without too much pain, this may wind up being the wave of the doggy poo future. However, this does require a dog owner to BUY the doggy poo freeze aerosol spray cans. (The manufacturers claim there are no CFCs in these products).

I have seen the future with my Magic 8 Ball and it is full of dried doggy poo – and not necessarily from freeze-dried dog poo.

Man and dog have survived together for thousands of years with piles of poo made between us. Dog poo didn’t kill us then, and it won’t kill us in the future. If dog owners are left without the free means to pick up dog waste, then they won’t. With recessions, global warming, wacky weather patterns and coming food shortages, making the neighbor clean up dog poo is going to become not that big a priority.

Poo from other people is far more dangerous to you than any other animal poo on the planet. Poo happens – get used to it. It really isn’t that bad. When you get used to seeing something every single day, whether it's urban decay or mounds of doggy doo, then you tend not to notice it.

And if you want to avoid this, then I would hope that towns and parks would put out more public trash cans and free means to pick up poop. Because doggies are gonna do what doggies need to do.