Elimination Discrmination - Part I
Dog owners are continually reminded to pick up after their dogs. The handy “for your convenience” poop bag station strategically placed at the beginning of a trail, in the park, at the beach, or the sign to indicate no dog poop area. Dog show competitors are reminded by the hosting club with announcements; “Please pick up after your dog, we’d like to be welcome here again”. Entry forms for these shows explain rules threatening eviction if caught not picking up after your dog. Evidentially dog owners may be expected to pick up after their dogs in wilderness areas too.
We all like to walk on clean trails, woods, beaches and parks. What I would like to know is why doesn’t this “pick up after you dog” rule apply to humans? Frequently my dogs and I walk in the woods and nearly every season they find a pile of human excrement to relish. No matter what season, spring, summer winter and especially fall with hunting season. Until now, winter was a safe haven, because the snow would hide the offending mass. Some might say if animals eliminate in the woods why can’t humans? The difference, wild animals and dogs are taught to use the outdoors as their “rest area’ while people are “toilet trained”. Eliminating for dogs is not only a biological function, but also a form of communication, scent marking and territory setting. As far as I know this is not a function for human elimination in today’s society. Certainly we all get caught off guard and the inevitable happens, but I recall being taught to “bury it”.
It is infuriating to find my dogs dining on a pile of human poop. The woods of Southern New England are not as remote as they appear and a toilet is usually not far away. With a little for planning nature’s way can be addressed thus squelching the need to go outdoors. The places people choose to go are astonishing. Behind a rock or the maple tree located two-steps off a trail. Put a little effort into it, walk further into the woods, and bury it. For emergencies, outfit yourself with your own baggy or hand trowel found at outdoor stores. They sell very nice collapsible trowels. The “poop bag” stations meant for the dogs could be used for human as well. Why not pack a personal bag, who is to know the difference if you are tossing human excrement or canine into the dumpster? Smell up your own car and not my dog’s mouth.
Human bowl movements rank the worst of anything my dogs discover. Who knows what infection threaten my dogs as they wallow in human poop and myself, as I must rinse them clean. The plethora of bacteria, preservatives, and toxins fermenting in the human poop is harmful for certain. I have, not by my own volition, become an aficionado on human stools. I am able to identify if a hunter ate sausage and eggs for breakfast, the hiker with her tail mix, vegetarians, and the logger with the runs. I know you all more intimately than I would like. Dogs are inherently driven to roll and eat fowl dead, stinking carcasses and fecal matter. Anyone who owns both cats and dogs can attest to the dog devouring the kitty truffles in the litter box or the rabbit droppings under the hutch, better yet snacking on the horse, cow, or sheep manure. I can’t leave out the bear scat, deer dodo, and beaver yuck with its oily fish stench. This stuff is fantastic to adore a glistening fury coat.
What people realize is the human boombie trail if the prize of them all. A dog owner is hard pressed to call their pet off a mound or human scrap left uncovered behind that rock or tree. The woods are not entirely remote and un-traveled, as we might like to believe. Keep this in mind as you venture off to relieve yourself. Know that someone’s dog will find your treasure and its owner will curse you for being so inconsiderate, not to mention the pollutants left to seep into the soil.
