What do you do with your dogs poo?

[JudyN]

For now, that's the best I can do while out walking.

And while I don't know all the intricacies of landfills, I do know the ones in my area frequently use large equipment to tear up and aerate what is in the dumps under the theory that it will help with degrading and decomposition where that is possible.

Don't worry, I wasn't criticising - it's what I do too! it's interesting that your landfills aerate the rubbish, which should help (I think the lack of air is the main problem rather than the lack of organisms). I haven't heard of that being done in this country, which isn't to say that they don't of course.

[gwd]

when i read the thread title, i was worried i was going to stumble on some bizarre, 'arts and craft' suggestions.

My one thing i cant udnerstand is when people on walks (which also bearing ion mind are not parks etc, they are walking round proper countryside) pick up the poo in a bag, then tie the bag to the hedge or a tree and leave it there! If theyre going to leave poo then leave it on the floor where it can biodegrade....why put it in a bag first?? Wierd!

i'm guilty of this on my walks. my kids tend to poop right at the start of the walk. i know i'm going to be coming back up the trail to get home so i usually bag it and leave it in a spot where i won't miss it on the return trip. that save me from having to carry the poop for the next hour or so.

[Erica]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who will leave poo when it's out of the way. Otherwise I pick it up in a poo bag. I think A&Z's owners use a cat litter scooper and fling it into the woods...but I can't stand carrying it since it's so smelly and gross. I tried putting it in a grocery bag and clipping that to my treat pouch, but that didn't work well.

If I'm going to be going by the same place, I will leave the bags by the side of the road as well. They're brightly colored so I don't miss them. The dogs are good about going to smell it too, haha.

[emmabeth]

Another raw feeder here...

Poos in the yard are collected up every couple of days (or week if we are super lazy) and put down the main drain - I have moved the cover off it slightly so we can drop stuff straight down, its a good 15ft drop so theres no smell comes back up! Then because my yard is mainly concrete flags, I slosh it down with some odour killing disinfectant, smells like bubblegum!

Poos on walks fall into several categories..

Poos on public footpaths and pavements are bagged up and taken away, we use biodegradable nappy sacks.

Poos off the path in the nettles or hedgerow MAY be left depending on the area - if its really dense undergrowth, thorny, damp etc, it stays. If its drier sparser undergrowth its either flicked deeper in with a stick or its picked up.

Poos off the path on a public footpath crossing grazing land or arable is picked up - no one wants to scrape dog poo out of a horses hoof or find dried up dog turds in their bale of hay or straw.

Interestingly, some places, I think Forestry Commission land, have a 'stick and flick' policy to reduce the number of bags going to landfill, these are of course places where poo will rot down and be eaten by various critters very quickly.

I don't feel guilty if I miss a poo though - my dogs poo degrades VERY fast, in a matter of a day or two, is rarely large or voluminous and I know they don't have worms. I refuse to buy into the hysteria about dog poo when it comes to raw fed dogs - it is NOT some Class A Biohazard Napalm like substance, it is just poo! Now poo that comes from dogs fed on cheap complete foods, that IS nasty stuff and it takes MONTHS to disappear on a surface like tarmac or concrete!

[jacksdad]

Now poo that comes from dogs fed on cheap complete foods, that IS nasty stuff and it takes MONTHS to disappear on a surface like tarmac or concrete!

I recently was wondering about this very thing.












*got to stop reading clare's FB*

[Sarah83]

Spen's also raw fed so I don't feel at all guilty leaving his poops in the nettles or other undergrowth. They're small and from what I've read about raw fed dogs it'll break down a hell of a lot faster than the giant orange turds left behind by most of the other dog walkers. I didn't even know there was any hysteria about raw fed dogs poo, what have I missed?

Hmm...and now I find myself wondering about the effects of commercial dog food vs raw food on the bloody beetles that use the stuff as food!

[Wilkie]

I'm glad that those little poop bags with the holders were made because so many people get sick of irresponsible people not picking up after their dogs. They'll leave it on sidewalks or on other people's lawns. It makes it so much easier to pick up after my dog if I don't have the scooper on hand.

[Nettle]

and now I find myself wondering about the effects of commercial dog food vs raw food on the bloody beetles that use the stuff as food!

I suspect they don't eat it either that or we have colonies of hyperactive slugs and beetles with behavioural problems! Would make a good sci-fi spoof

[ClareMarsh]

when i read the thread title, i was worried i was going to stumble on some bizarre, 'arts and craft' suggestions.

*got to stop reading clare's FB*

I didn't even know there was any hysteria about raw fed dogs poo, what have I missed?

I assume Emmabeth is refering to the idea that raw fed dogs leave a trail of salmonella wherever they go I have read a study that showed they are more likely to shed salmonella (it was commissioned for the purposes of establishing whether raw fed dogs could be therapy dogs for immune compromised individuals) but we also know kibble fed dogs can shed it. And putting immune compromised individuals to one side what the hell are people doing with kibble fed dog poo that they wouldn't with raw, I mean it's poo

[emmabeth]

I'd forgotten the salmonella thing - I actually meant the general hysteria about dog poo - ie, that it will render small children blind from 500 yards due to toxicara canis worms..

T. canis worms DO sometimes cause blindness, but a person has to EAT a fair bit of the poo, which has to have stayed at a stable warm, moist sort of temperature for four or five days, and of course has to have come from a dog carrying those worms - the chances of that happening certainly the uk, where the weather can't stay the same for five minutes let alone five days, is very very low - Id put money on most of the cases of partial blindness due to t. canis as being down to adults who are living in total filth and probably eating food they find in bins and on the ground.

What anti-dog people in the UK at least, also forget is that the red fox will also carry this worm, no one worms them, they sh*t everywhere and in urban areas they are increasing in numbers like big red fluffy tailed rats.

Poo that dries up in a day and breaks down in two days is not going to lead to the correct environment for the worm eggs to survive, which is what happens with poo from raw fed dogs (and probably from wild rural foxes), but dogs fed on complete stuff, particularly the very cheap brands, well that hangs around ages (I did make notes of a turd on a walk I did daily from december to march.. it finally washed away in mid march, having been there since I arrived here early december! In that time the poo was rained on, snowed on, trodden on... and still it remained!) - I would think urban foxes which eat a diet of mainly human food and dog/cat food - their poo also hangs around a long time too, and thus spreads more disease.

[ladybug1802]

Ah GWD I dont mind it when people leave the poo bags to collect ;ater on...but most of the time people just leave them there, and the same bag is on the same tree the next week!

[Wilkie]

What are the best dog foods if raw diets aren't possible?

[JudyN]

Wilkie, if you have a browse through the Health, Diet & Exercise section you should find plenty of threads about what the best dog food it - it's probably a little off topic for this thread.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is the possibility of dog poo left on the ground changing the fertility of the area. On some of the protected heathland round here dog walkers are asked to pick up dog poo even if in less accessible areas because when it decomposes it would lead to increased fertility which would change the ecosystem and threaten vulnerable species. How much dog poo it would take to make a difference, I don't know...

[Nettle]

Highly unlikely. By the time the bugs and beetles have done with it, it will be different in composition anyway. If it made that much difference, farmers wouldn't need to spread tons (literal tons) of artificial fertilizer on poor ground in order to get a crop out of it. Animal muck would be enough.

However it's another arrow in the quiver of the anti-dog brigade. A lot of creatures manure wild areas, but it's only ever the dog owners that get lambasted with pseudo-science like this

[JudyN]

However it's another arrow in the quiver of the anti-dog brigade. A lot of creatures manure wild areas, but it's only ever the dog owners that get lambasted with pseudo-science like this

Most creatures that poo in wild areas already live there and eat from there, so aren't importing additional nutrients into the site from elsewhere. I'm trying to find some research and decent evidence on the subject, but googling 'dog' 'faeces' 'fertility' 'heath' etc returns some strange sites