-My friend who lived on a dairy farm had a coffee mug that depicted a peaceful pastoral scene: barn, pasture, trees, cattle. Beneath the cows, which I believe were smiling, was a memorable phrase that’s been on my mind a lot lately:
“Some days you step in it, some days you don’t.”
The other day, I stepped in it. And the really bad news is that I wasn’t the only one.
“It” as you may have guessed, is the inevitable piles of “stuff” left behind when an animal is well fed. It’s virtually unavoidable on a farm, where domesticated animals tend to be large, and present in large numbers. But it really has no place in our parks, where the domesticated animals are smaller and, ideally, leashed and accompanied by an owner.
Yet there it was, pile after pile, left in the path at Otter Creek Bend Wetland Park. This time of year especially, OCB is a busy place. As part of the park district’s partnership with St. Charles Community Unit School District 303, more than 1,000 area fifth graders are visiting the park on Wetland Ecology field trips.
That’s more than 2,000 fifth-grade feet, plus the feet of teachers, parent chaperones and park district instructors, treading the paths during the month of September. Odds are good that each day, someone will be stepping in it.
Such incidents inevitably lead, as you can imagine, to shrieks and howls, not to mention a loss of focus for the group. Worse yet is the lasting impression such experiences impart. Rather than “Oh wow, Otter Creek Bend is a marvelous natural area performing a vital ecological function,” we run the risk of students going back to class remembering “Otter Creek Bend was the place where Billy stepped in poo.”
Unfortunately, this problem isn’t restricted to one location. People are stepping in stuff with increasing frequency, in places that range from parks and forest preserves to neighborhood parkways and sidewalks.
I suppose it only makes sense. We have a lot more people around the TriCities. And a lot more dogs. I’d estimate that for every 10 responsible, conscientious dog owners, there’s one blockhead who figures it’s his or her right to let li’l Fido or Fifi dump wherever, whenever.
What I can’t understand, though, is how these folks can stand there while the act is being committed, then walk away as if nothing happened. I know I can’t. Even if I’ve run out of bags (which happens from time to time, especially with our chowhound cocker Benny) there’s usually something close by that can serve the purpose. Sometimes it’s a stray McDonald’s wrapper (thanks to our blockhead litterbugs, but that’s a topic for another column). Other times it’s a handful of leaves (maple will suffice, but sycamore or burdock are even better). At the very least, there’s The Flick, a quick snap of the ankle. Like a Tiger Woods chip shot gone awry, it pops the poop deep into the tall grass or shrubs and out of the way.
Some folks, I guess, just can’t be bothered. Others believe they don’t have to clean up after their pets because the whole process is “natural.” Well, the process may be natural, but the end product most certainly is not.
What a domestic dog drops is far different from the sort of stuff—let’s call it scat—that wild animals leave behind. Scat consists of bones and fur, rinds and seeds—indigestible bits from earlier meals that were caught or harvested nearby. These bits are part of the local ecosystem and are simply being returned to the environment from which they came. Because waste is minimal in such a system, odor also is minimal.
A dog’s leavings, by contrast, consist largely of grains, by-products and other “filler” used in the production of commercial pet food. Depending on the brand of food, the quantity of filler it contains can be quite considerable. And depending on the size of the dog, the quantity of filler left behind can be quite considerable as well. Stinky, too.
As a park district, we’ve done what we can to encourage people to clean up after their pets. We’ve put up signs and have experimented with boxes that dispense free cleanup bags. But the signs are ignored and the boxes get vandalized, usually within days of being installed.
What I’d like to see a little bit more effort on the part of dog owners, so that we might have fewer days where we “step in it” and more where we don’t. No doubt, it would be a step in the right direction.
Pam Otto is the manager of nature programs and interpretive services for the St. Charles Park District. She can be reached at potto@stcparks.org or 630-513-4346.