Dog poop on lawns irks San Jose homeowner

DEAR JOAN » I need your help desperately. How do we inform dog owners and dog walkers that homeowners do not want their dogs using our yards as a toilet?

This is offensive behavior even if the poop is picked up — the idea is just disgusting. Picking up the poop does not remove the bacteria from the ground.

I watch the owners scoop up the poop and little children come along later in the day and play in the very spot where the poop was. This is just so disgusting to think that a child playing in his own yard is rolling around in his neighbors’ dog poop. It’s also a health hazard.

Private property is offlimits to walkers and their dogs.

Why can’t the dogs be taken to an open public area or dog park to do their duty? When I had dogs, they used our backyard and I cleaned up their mess. What has happened that makes people believe they have the right to allow their dogs to poop in anyone’s yard? This behavior is disgusting and disrespectful.

— Mean Anderson, San Jose

DEAR MEAN » You raise a lot of philosophical questions that I’m not fully equipped to answer. I don’t know why some people feel an entitlement, or when exactly we stopped respecting private property.

As to the main subject — telling people not to let their dogs onto your property — that falls to you. When you see it happen, tell the person to stay off. Post signs, build a wall or get motion-activated sprinklers.

I will say that people should try their best to keep dogs to their own area or to public spaces. It’s not hard to do if you pay attention to the dog and not your phone.

However, I’d like you to take some deep breaths and not be so worried and disgusted by the dog poop. We shouldn’t think of lawns or any landscape as pristine. One of the lawn’s important roles is to filter out pollutants before they get into the groundwater, so there are a lot of unseen disgusting things in the expanse.

Plenty of wildlife poo and pee on them as well, although I will admit there’s a big size difference between a worm and a Great Dane.

In the meantime, however, I’m asking that pet walkers do their best to keep their dogs off private property. You aren’t entitled to be there. End of debate.

Tales of kindness

For the second year, Palo Alto Humane Society is asking seventh and eighth grade students in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties to enter a story writing contest to become Ambassadors of Compassion.

Stories can be fiction or nonfiction, but they must be on the theme of animals and people helping each other.

The winning author will receive $500, and two runner-up winners will receive $200 each. The winning stories will become part of Palo Alto Humane Society’s kindness library.