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?