Let me first say that I love animals.   In our home we currently have two cats and a rat named Sparkle.  I grew up with cats, dogs, goldfish and  hermit tree crabs.  So I DO love animals.  It’s animal owners that I’m not always too fond of.

We have a small, but perfectly nice front lawn that is my husband’s pride and joy.  True there is a slight splurge problem going on and some crabgrass  among the fancy lawn that he grew from seed, but Brad takes great pride in it.  Mowing it compulsively, edging, fixing the sprinklers that I back over in my car.

The lawn looks nice and we tended.  It is obviously a lawn that someone works on.  So I do not understand how someone can let their dog just squat and poop on my lawn.    To me, it’s like letting my 3 year old poop on your living room floor.  You just don’t do that.  It’s someone’s property.  Someone’s home.

While most pet owners rush right after and pick up the steaming mess in their little baggie (don’t even get me started on those baggies) I don’t know if they realize that even though they remove the main “offender”  there is still something left behind on my lawn?  Some remnant that stuck to the grass.  The grass my children play on.

Ugh.  It just grosses me out.

I can hear it now “but Keli, I am responsible, I pick up the mess, I walk my dog on a leash, I’m a responsible dog owner”.  I am sure you are.  I have some very good friends who are fantastic pet owners.  And they take care to take their dog (with baggies in tow) to the local dog park, open space, park, dirt lot.   They don’t use their neighbors lawn as a doggie potty.

So if you live in the suburbs and don’t have access to the wide open spaces of, say, a prairie, please check out your local yellow pages for  a dog park.  Your dog and your neighbors will thank you.

Now go run! (But watch where you step).

Keli