New council bylaw could have solution to dog fouling in the bag
COULD dog walkers be required by local law to carry poop bags with them?
If proposals put forward by Rossendale Council get the green light, then yes, that’s what soon could be required.
And for this columnist, it can’t come soon enough.
Make no mistake, dog fouling is a disgusting blight on our communities, and speaks to the mindset of those dog owners who can’t be bothered cleaning up after their pet when out and about.
It’s a problem which has been bothering councillors for some time, and it’s easy to say ‘fine them’ (the dirty dog walkers, not the councillors), or ‘prosecute them’ but the evidence required can only been timely and costly to gather.
Too often, it has felt as though we, as members of the public, would have to intervene.
The problem here is that if someone is antisocial enough to leave dog poo behind (or drop litter for that matter), they are probably anti-social enough to, at best, leave you with a bad blast of verbal abuse.
The arrival of private enforcement officers in Rossendale, contracted by the council, late last year was a welcome turning point.
In the first week, enforcements officers in December issued 177 fixed penalty notices - although council data suggests just two were dog fouling.
The proposed bylaw changes will presumably make it easier for enforcement officers to do their jobs.
Not having a poop bag while walking your dog is surely the clearest possible indication that you don’t intend to clear up after your pet. And that’s disgusting, anti-social and, bluntly, criminal. Of course, it’ll be interesting to see how the council chooses to interpret the new bylaws if they take effect.
A softly-softly approach at first would make sense, with the enforcement officers offering up poop bags to those without them, and taking their details so that if they are caught again, they are fined. Unusually for a new law, the council will find widespread goodwill behind the implementation of this one, and it’s important the council maintains that goodwill.
The other interesting development is the council’s proposal to restrict the number of dogs you can walk at one time to five. For the vast majority of people, that will never be a problem, but it could have a serious impact of the many dog walking services operating in the area.
It’s not uncommon to see pairs of dog walkers walking far more than that, and in my experience the dogs are cleaned up after and well looked after while out walking.
The council needs to ensure it carefully explains what this rule means and how it will be interpreted.
The dog walkers round here are providing a service which local people clearly value, and the council needs to be careful it isn’t advertently putting people out of business simply because of an arbitrary number it puts in a bylaw.