DOGS

Yikes! Oh No! It’s Mystery Turds!

The Case of the Unscooped Poop

Who is walking their dog around our lovely suburban neighborhood but not picking up that dog’s poop? All of my neighbors are buzzing about this.

Many of us are dog owners. When we walk our own dogs, we do the right thing. We gather up the resulting turds in small plastic bags, schlep them back home with us and throw them the trash.

But recently large poops have been appearing on many of our front lawns. Somebody isn’t picking up their dog’s poop! The neighborhood is irate about this. “Who is the culprit?” we ask each other. “What kind of slimeball would let their dog take a big dump on somebody else’s lawn and then just walk away?”

It must be someone new to the neighborhood, we’ve concluded, since the poops began to appear only a month ago. Or somebody who has lived here for a while but is a clueless or assholic new dog owner.

We are all keeping our eyes peeled. It’s only a manner of time before The Culprit is Caught and Shamed. At least we hope so.

Years ago, my friend Joe came home from work one day to find a pile of fresh poop on his front lawn. The next day? Same thing. After a few weeks of this, he borrowed a security camera, set it up and pointed it out his front porch window.

When he got home that night, after disposing of the latest mystery deposit, he poured himself a glass of wine and sat down to fast forward through the footage.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, and then, suddenly, two turds came flying over the fence that separated his property from that of his neighbors and landed on Joe’s lawn.

Mystery solved!

Joe’s neighbor had been scooping his own dog’s poop and then tossing it over the fence into Joe’s yard instead of bothering to bag it and put it in the trash.

Did Joe rush next door to angrily confront his neighbor?

Nope. Joe, like me, is a mild-mannered librarian. We librarians are rarely noisy and confrontative. But we can definitely be passive aggressive. After that, whenever Joe came home to find his neighbor’s dog’s poop on his lawn, he just put on a latex glove, picked up the poop, and tossed it back over the fence.

After a few days of this, his neighbor’s dog’s poop stopped appearing on Joe’s lawn.

Problem solved!

At least once a week, a fresh pile of poop appears on my own front lawn. Should I borrow the motion activated camera my nephew uses to take wildlife photos, set it up on my own front porch, and unmask the culprit?

I’m tempted. After all, I’m curious about who is doing this. But what do I do once I’ve identified the wrongdoer? Track down their identity, ring their doorbell and shout at them? Post their photo around the neighborhood, with a notice saying Beware! This dickwad doesn’t pick up their dog’s poop!

I’m a 68-year-old retired librarian. Although the reference librarian in me and my inner Nancy Drew wants to solve the mystery and take action, the last thing I want to do is provoke the kind of scumbag who lets their dog poop on other people’s property.

Do I attempt to stop this? Or do I just live with it? What would you do?

(Update: One of my neighbors caught the culprit in the act, gave him a stern lecture, and make sure he went back to his house to get a plastic bag and cleaned the poop up. Then he told the entire neighborhood who the guilty party was. Now whenever The Culprit walks his dog, he knows we’re all watching.)

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