Recruiting a Coalition of the Willing

Every person I speak with about the need to clean up dog mess is a likely convert. That is, according to an EPA survey, 56% of dog walkers are likely not to be intransigent poop polluters. However, it may take the threat of fines, or at least awareness of the law, to bring all of the 56% around. In the two encounters I've had with my excursions around Lake Lariat this week, the responses were not supportive. I heard versions of, "I don't leave it where it would offend anyone" and, "Other people are worse offenders than me." This doesn't mean that these two fellows won't eventually come around.

Getting dog walkers equipped needs to be the first step in changing their habits. I'm going to request a grant for buying portable poop bag dispensers that people can carry on their dog leashes. These could be handed out to walkers, giving them one less excuse. Other than that, a plastic grocery bag would be helpful to hold full poop bags until they can find a trash receptacle. I've gotten into the practice of tying this outer bag onto the loop of the leash. It doesn't smell and if a breach were to occur, it would be clear of my clothing. Some poop bag dispensers come with a point of attachment for dangling filled bags. These serve the same purpose as tying it to the leash and would be a way to encourage new converts to show off their compliance.

Taking it to the Street

It dawned on me today that to get dog waste picked up around Lake Lariat, it just takes about 13 of me walking my dog with roughly equidistant spacing all around the lake critical area. The best way to evoke behavioral change is with living examples. If I can get full coverage by at least one regular dog-walker throughout the critical area, then the visible example of them picking up after their pets will spread to others in their neighborhoods until it becomes the norm.

No need to spend time preparing signs, announcements, or information booths. The way to directly deal with this is to find people in the act of walking their dogs in their various haunts around the lake and simply walk with them and tell them what I'm trying to accomplish, look for signs of conviction, and obtain commitment. I want to be prepared to offer ideas and tools, if needed, for helping them to make cleaning up after their dog a part of their daily walks.

It will probably take more than 12 others to get full coverage, since I usually walk my dog daily about 0.75 miles and others may not be so regular or wide-ranging, but my initial goal is one in each sector. It looks like I'm in for some walking adventures in the coming months, gaining adherents and monitoring progress.

The Goal: One Dozen Poop Conscious Dog Walkers (Photo by Michael Coghlan)

You Too Can Be A Poop Scooping Pro

My newspaper-lined poop pickup bag method is working fine, but I will admit that, though it works great on a pile of dog biscuits, a fresh specimen of the real McCoy will often deter the most enthusiastic of composters. A day of drying can bring the less manageable nuggets to a condition firm enough to retrieve. Sometimes, when walking Gretchen, I will take a temporary pass on her pungent product and find a firmer one left from another canine in the recent past. It is easy to find these replacements because there are some well known dog latrines on all of our frequent walking routes. In other cases, Gretchen locates them for me.

Leaving my dog's feces on public property, e.g. the right-of-way, is an illegal act punishable by a fine, according to the county animal control regulations, so I would not do this in the public eye. However, if I make a practice of always removing at least one neglected stool from the roadside, I feel like a good citizen. Fines for leaving dog crap lying around in public seem severe, but you could be fined even more (or imprisoned!) for allowing it to accumulate in your yard. I don't know whether these laws have ever been enforced here, but maybe they should.  According to Mr. Dog Poop, the problem warrants even stricter law enforcement.

In order to ensure that I am prepared for my dog walk sanitation responsibilities, I have a kit that should be standard issue for every dog owner. It is easy to assemble, but an enterprising business person could possibly get them out in retail stores, also. The centerpiece is a fanny pack. In it are all of the items that my cleanup method requires. After each walk, I replenish it with the consumable items such as newspaper or bags, as needed. It beats stuffing my pockets with this and that each time I take Gretchen out. With this kit, it's just a quick grab and go.

My dog poop clean up kit includes poop bags, torn newspaper pages, grocery bags, and hand cleaner. A small garden spade or toy plastic beach shovel is also recommended for the impossible grabs.

Saving the Bay, One Turd at a Time

I ran into local award-winning environmentalist, +Nancy Radcliffe and shared with her my new resolve for picking up any of my dog's droppings that might cause problems for the watershed. Nancy, who is a leader in the movement to ban plastic bags, suggested that I use newspaper instead of the dog poop pickup bags so freely available. I told her I would do that, so here is the method I came up with. Easier to grasp this idea through demonstration, so a 3 minute video was made. You can tell I'm a little nervous at first, but my voice slows down to a normal timbre at the end.

I jumped on Nancy's suggestion of newspaper as a collection device because it enables easier composting and doesn't waste plastic bags. It is possible to dump a dog turd from a poop bag into a compost bin, but the newspaper allows it to drop out easily and, if you are careful, the poop pickup bag can be used repeatedly.

In an effort to further reduce plastic bag use, I plan to transition to using paper bags to hold the newsprint protected poop. It's just a matter of being particular where I shop and making sure they offer paper bags. I might have to start buying wine by the bottle :).

Picking up Phosphorus Grenades

It has been shown that the microcystis aeruginosa bacteria that is associated with algal blooms occurring in Lake Lariat (among many other lakes in the U.S.) is responsive to reductions in phosphorus, but not to efforts targeted at nitrogen reduction. Since dog and cat feces contain more than the usual amount of phosphorus (compared to cow manure, for example), and dogs and cats produce manure close to their own body weight every month, there is probably about 20,000 lbs of manure and about 300 lbs of phosphorus being spread by dogs and cats around the "critical area" of Lake Lariat every month, assuming owners are already sending half of their pets' manure to the landfill. That comes close to 2 tons of phosphorus every year. Unlike nitrogen, phosphorus gets consumed slowly in the soil, so it is more likely to end up in the Lake, where it may accumulate to trigger algal blooms.

Photo by Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

One thing to note about picking up dog crap in one's yard is that it should be done frequently, but at least prior to rain events. Letting it dry for a day or so is OK, if no rain is forecast. I like to time my pile pick-up rounds to coincide with rain-barrel draining when a storm is due the next day. As for dog walking, I've learned to take a couple of poop pickup bags and to have a plastic grocery bag to drop those into. The bigger bag gets tied on my belt until I can dump the contents in a trash can. I would consider composting these, but dog poop bags on the market aren't made for compost piles. Even the vegetable-based bags don't break down quickly or thoroughly enough. (Exceptions exist, e.g. Bio Bag)

For cat owners, the eco-opportunity is greater since cats are often given to going in a litter box. The key is finding a compostable litter. The late Gene Logsdon addressed this idea in chapter 3 of Holy Shit: Managing Manure to Save Mankind. A great odor absorbing material to mix into the litter is ground up biochar. It is not going to break down much in the composting process, but it should enhance composting temperature and time. I'm thinking about hosting an Amazon giveaway with Logsdon's book as the prize. It could be a way to get agriculturally oriented people in my community thinking about manure composting.

Clean Yard, Clean Lake

While septic systems are the major contributor to water pollution in this area, we humanure machines also have dogs that contribute in a more distributed fashion. Normally considered an urban problem due to runoff often being quickly shunted to stormwater drains rather than directed onto the landscape for infiltration, it also warrants attention in suburban settings with less impervious surface.

Taking the Maryland fertilizer law single application limit for lawns as a reference point, a dog contributes about 0.75 pounds per day, so every 25 days or so will drop enough manure to exceed the 1,000 square feet nitrogen and phosphorus limits in the fertilizer law. Nobody fertilizes that frequently, so leaving dog waste to decompose in one's yard violates the principle of the fertilizer law (aside from the fact that it makes a mess out of your lawn). However, when a person walks their dog instead of leaving it in a yard all the time, a lot of their pet's droppings get distributed over an area much greater than 1,000 square feet, so it's probably not excessive and needn't be collected, except in urban areas, or where it is clearly destined to be washed into a storm drain, or when required by rules.

If the fertilizer law is valid, nowhere is it more so than in the critical area, to include around inland lakes and streams. I traced out a line 1,000 feet from Lake Lariat on a topographic map and found that my house is inside that self-imposed buffer. Fortunately, I already collect and compost my dog's waste. Using that compost in a project that can demonstrate its efficacy is going to be one way that I gradually accustom others in my area to the idea of humanure compost. I think the project will be a conservation landscape in front of my house.

Part of my campaign could be spent encouraging dog owners in the target area to pick up the dog shit in their yards, especially from November 15th to March 1st when no fertilization of lawns is allowed. Dog poop will tend to wash into runoff more during those months because the ground is less pervious due to freezing.

Wholistic Medicine

Health is a major concern in my household these days. My wife's diabetes has resulted in numerous hospital stays over the years, many of which involved surgery, as with her recent foot injury from which she is slowly recovering. Several members of our church attended a workshop last year to begin collectively educating our congregation on diabetes and how to guard against it. Our campaign hasn't gone very far yet, but having learned about social marketing at my most recent Watershed Stewards Academy session, I have a new toolset to try out.

Our other household member, Gretchen the rottweiler,
has had her share of health issues lately, too, though she is only three years old. The major problem started last winter when she tore her cranial cruciate ligament (CCL), which ended up costing us around $4,000 to surgically repair. No sooner had she finished recovering from that, and then she came down with urinary incontinence. Visits to the vet, medication, and flooring replacement are probably going to amount to costs for this issue in the same range as the CCL treatment. Our pet healthcare costs are all out of pocket, so we are going to make extra effort to shop for more economic options.

For Gretchen's incontinence (which we have learned is more common in her breed, especially for dogs with docked tails and for those which have been spayed) we first tried Proin, which did not have any effect...More days in the backyard and nights of leaks on the floor (we haven't quite mastered the doggie diaper, yet)...Next, we ordered an herb based remedy, which we have not yet received, but the outcome should be known in a month.

Our vet had recommended we try DES, but Dr. Mercola's Healthy Pets website points out dangers of side-effects from that medication. It is also expensive. We hope the herbal potion that we ordered works. Dr. Karen Becker  (Dr. Mercola's veterinary counterpart) also recommends another natural product that targets glandular imbalances. Dr. Becker also suggests acupuncture and chiropractic as treatment options, though I think those would be hard to find in our area.

Dr. Mercola's radical, anti-medical establishment view is refreshing and encouraging. This is a new effort for us at using commercial natural remedies. Past attempts have met with unsensational results. Maybe this time will be better and we can have more hope in the future than what we see in our current healthcare complex.