Where are the Poo-Gooders of Leith?

Dog Fouling is an emotive subject. On the one hand, there are the local residents who are rightly concerned that otherwise appealing green spaces are turned into little more than dog toilets. Nowhere is this more of a problem than in small urban parks with lots of well used childrens play facilities.

On the other hand, dog owners are a major group of park users. In fact, without them, some open spaces would be hardly used at all. It is little wonder that responsible dog owners who do pick up their dogs poo feel victimised.

Here in Leith, Montgomery Street park residents have recently been successful in their bid to have their whole park classified as a dog free zone, whilst down the road in Dalmeny Street park the local friends group encourages local dog owners to scoop the poop by organising an annual dog show. A recent week of action in the Dalmeny Street and Montgomery Street area saw council wardens go all out to try to fine irresponsible dog owners using mobile CCTV in most of the local parks.

However, even council officers admitted at this weeks Neighbourhood Partnership meeting that they had to struggle to find a clean bit of grass before they could put up their bouncy castle for the Parklife 2 event in the Dalmeny Street during the week of action.

There seems to be a growing local consensus that more enforcement action is needed to tackle the problem of dog fouling whether that's to enforce dog bans in some parks, or to issue fines direct to irresponsible dog owners. It'll be interesting to see whether an increase in the number of environmental wardens based in North Edinburgh will reverse the decline in fines issued for littering and dog fouling in recent years in Leith.

There are responsible dog owners in Leith too. Our favourite responsible dog owner, is one regular user of Pilrig Park who believes in maintaining good 'Poo Karma'. If his dog does a poo in the park, but he didn't see it, can't find it or he doesn't have any poo bags that day, this particular dog owner doesn't worry. He simply makes sure he picks up another poo that he finds the next time he's able to - even if his dog didn't do it. In this way, he ensures that he has good poo Karma at all times. If only all dog owners were so worried about their poo karma.

Anyway, the video below tells the story of how dog owners who use one Devon Park organised themselves into a group to encourage people to scoop the poop, when threatened with a dog ban from their local parks. After watching this we couldn't help but wonder, will the poo-gooders of Leith ever get organised?

Comments

[Angus]

Hmm. I don't think we should forget how parks used to be, in the days before the majority of dog owners cleaned up after their dogs. Since this post on Monday I have looked for dog crap around Leith Links and struggled to find any! I know there are some parts of Leith that are in a disgusting state, and we should campaign to get the laws enforced and to make it easier for owners to do the right thing. My personal gripe is the cycleway at Restalrig Road, and I'm convinced that the simple action of putting a bin at the entrance to the cycleway (next to the bus stop) would improve the situation.

[Derek McEwan]

If people need to get bags to pick up poo I reccomend http://www.poobagsdirect.co.uk it's relativley new but it has fantastic prices on poo bags which means there are no excuses not to get some

[Lynzi]

As a responsible dog owner and Mother of a young child, I too feel that there is still too much dog mess in our parks and public spaces. I truly believe that dog owners should be required to have a license to own a dog, and that all dogs should be chipped so they can be identified. Owning a dog is a huge responsibility that should not be taken lightly and I believe that if dog owners were required to have a license to own a dog, the council would be able to take tougher action against irresponsible owners by revoking their license if found to be allowing their dogs to foul in public spaces and not cleaning up after them. The money from the licensing could then be used to pay towards policing this more thoroughly. People are willing to pay 100's of ££'s to buy and keep dogs, so why shouldn't they be made to pay towards the cleaning up and policing of parks with a licence fee.