If dogs are a man’s best friend, then dog shit is undoubtedly Public Enemy No. 1, the worst of the repeat offenders lurking on the sidewalks of Chicago. All the official notices stapled to trees and discussions at ward meetings can’t stop the random walk-bys because this ring is run by the most deadly of crime bosses: irresponsible dog owners.
If I had a dollar for every time my shoe or one (or all) of my dog’s paws set off one of these landmines, I’d use my fortune to buy every dog owner in the city limits a pooper scooper since they can’t seem to follow five manual steps. Is it really so hard to just insert a hand into a bag, pick up the log(s), invert the bag, tie a pretty bow and dump into the nearest trash bin? The difficulty level should be right up there with knowing how to dress yourself—unless of course you’re missing both your hands. But even then, find a friend and employ the buddy system when walking your dog.
What’s astounding is that there are people all around this city birthing and taking ownership of even worse crapping machines and somehow that seems not to be a problem to clean up. They will wipe the creature’s ass, maybe even powder it if the kid is lucky—and repeat this cycle about seventeen times a day. But ask these same people to pick up their dog’s crap when taking their clean kid in a stroller on a sunny afternoon and they act dumbfounded.
If we are serious about moving toward a green Chicago, then the first thing we have to do is remove all the brown. Just think of all the positive benefits that picking up your dog’s crap can do for our city: using your old plastic bags from Jewel or empty aluminum cans as a means of disposal is a bonus form of recycling. Or if newspaper is your preferred method, we could literally get all the writers back on staff at the Trib and Sun-Times with the number of issues sold each week. Plus, countless pairs of shoes could be saved from the imminent death and sent to the nearest charity. Beach restrictions could be lifted earlier in the summer without canine E.coli floating in the waters of Lake Michigan. We could even bring down our reputation as one of the fattest cities in America by cleaning up the dog crap left in parks so fat kids could actually play a game of baseball. The possibilities are endless. And here you just thought it was dog shit. (Selena Fragassi)
