A different slant on dog control

MY human friends have told me that there has been quite a bit of discussion in the paper about dogs having to be on leads in parks so that they can be controlled better.

In particular, in order that they won’t poo in places where people walk and that their ‘owners’ will be persuaded to pick up the dog poo. Have I got this right?

I may do my poo in the garden: in that case my human friends pick it up and put it with the flowers or shrubs.

But when I take my human friends for their walk I may need a poo.

In that case I wait until the lead that I use to join up with my friends has been unhitched.

Then I go and carefully look for a nice lonely place to have a poo: usually under a bush or pile of leaves. I’m not saying how I find a good spot.

Then I do a little dance round and round; I think that is why my poo ends up in a neat pile.

Sometimes I can’t find a very lonely place: then my human friend picks the poo up and puts it in a bin.

He has done experiments to find out how long dog poo stays around. He tells me that it is usually about three weeks: sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less, depending on the weather.

That is still a lot less than, for example, that broken glass that somebody left scattered all over the pavement last week; or the plastic and potato chips that some other person left in the grassy bit near the big shop the other day; or the plastic drinks bottle that someone else left in the park.

They’ll be around for years and years, unless someone picks them up and puts them in a bin.

They’ll then get put in a hole in the ground somewhere, where they will stay forever – a lot longer than my poo.

By the way, I am not ‘owned’ by my human friends.

Gertie

(aged 6½ )