Natural waste: canine companions and the lure of inattentively pooping in public

Abstract

The most organized and regulated societies in Europe have a comparatively high density of pet dogs per inhabitant. Contrary to the general trend in Western societies towards raising standards of hygiene in everyday life, pedestrian areas and urban parks tend to be dog fouling hotspots. Unlike other nonhuman animals, pet dogs are often walked to public places for the sole reason to defecate. This article aims to explore a variety of dog owners’ strategies when dealing with excrement while walking their dogs. This is done to highlight the relational ties between dogs and humans that are manifested in strategies for dealing with a highly important ‘actant’ in the collective: poop. By so doing, the observed varieties of inattentively pooping in public are categorized into three main types in order to highlight different forms of knowing or not knowing about excrement in emerging associations between dog and dog owner through the medium of poop.

Keywords:

• Actor-network theory
• animals in society
• excrement
• fouling
• health
• human-animal studies
• sociology of ignorance

Notes

1. The situation in North America is somewhat different from that of the UK and continental Europe due to debates that emerged in the 1970s to inform New York’s famous ‘Poop Scoop Law’ (cf. Brandow 2008). However, since the canine population in the US is still rising as well, the challenge of coping with feces seems destined not to go away.

2. See the respective websites of the two associations: http://www.aspca.org and http://www.americanpetproducts.org.

3. According to www.mapsofworld.com, the top 10 countries for dog population figures are the US, Brazil, China, Japan, Russia, South Africa, France, Italy, Poland, and Thailand. However, these numbers also include estimates for stray dogs, so it is difficult to gauge the number of dogs owned per inhabitant. See also http://www.stadthunde.com and http://www.deathrowpets.net/PDFs/Update_5/A%20Different%20Perspective.pdf.

4. I owe this story to Maria Świątkiewicz-Mośny, who also pointed out to me that shit in Polish is kupa and kupa also means ‘heaps of’ and ‘lots of.’ So a lot of the public debate on the topic focuses on this play with words. Further info on Polish school kids’ educational program on poop can be found here: http://rudaslaska.naszemiasto.pl/artykul/galeria/sztuczna-kupa-w-rudzie-slaskiej-na-rynku-zdjecia,2204974,t,id.html (last accessed, September 3, 2014).

5. An excellent discussion on different ways of conceptualizing nonhumans as actants can be found in Sayes (2014). For critical debates on actants and ANT as regards its usefulness for environmental sociology, see Voss and Peukert (2006).

6. Practice theory is a wide field. Normally the origins of this approach are associated with some of the writings of Pierre Bourdieu (esp. Bourdieu 1977). Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory (esp. Giddens 1984) is another important source. Newer strands of practice theory such as the works of Brand (2010), Schatzki (2010), Spaargaren (2011), and Wilhite (2012) also bring the ecological aspects of everyday practices into focus.

7. The question is, however, what are the real intentions of the pensioner? Since I only observed this without talking to the pensioner, I simply assume that he was keen on a plastic-free environment for him and his dog. Of course, motivations for such a behavior can be quite different.

8. See for example http://www.bucksherald.co.uk/news/more-news/latest-hang-up-dog-waste-bags-in-bushes-1-4916736 or http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=629421 or http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kentonline/news/2012/february/3/dog_poo.aspx for a selection of the online public debates to be found in the English language. See also BBC News on ‘Bags of dog waste hung from trees’: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/berkshire/8163255.stm. A Google search with the words dog, poop, bushes, and hanging leads to several hundred debates and reports of hanging poop bags all over the world. A Google search with the German words Hundekot, Tüte, and hängen leads to similar results. Discussions with colleagues from Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands, and France have led to similar results. A Google search with the French terms chien and Sacs de merde, in addition, delivers many amusing photos, see for example: http://avignon.midiblogs.com/media/02/02/934838066.jpg.

9. See the society’s website at http://www.mcsuk.org/press/view/397.

10. As a blogger on http://exurbanpedestrian.wordpress.com stated: ‘I’m human and no matter from which angle I examine this phenomena, I cannot explain it. You walk your dog. Your dog poops. You go to all the trouble of bringing a plastic bag; wrapping your hand in the bag; picking up the warm poop, tying a knot in the bag; and then you just drop the bag? Why not just leave the poop so it has some hope of biodegrading in the next thousand years? Only aliens could do something so inexplicable.’ Furthermore, a Google search for ‘wrapped dog poo(p)’ leads to numerous debates on ways of depositing wrapped poop in places that are not waste bins.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matthias Gross

Matthias Gross is Professor of Environmental Sociology at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, and, by joint appointment, the University of Jena.