by C.H. Wells
Some weeks ago a letter to the editor of The Millstone reminded dog owners that other people’s lawns are not canine toilets, and that the practice of allowing one’s dog to foul someone else‘s space was offensive.
I think each of us can identify with this. After all, who has not, on at least one occasion, walked out the door of their home to be confronted by just such an offending item sitting prominently on display. And I think the sense of offense is probably universal: “How dare they?! On my property?!”
The very sight of it – for most of us – is a red flag. It’s hard not to take such an act personally or even to impute, to the human participant in the act, a sense of spite. Certainly one message comes across loud and clear: “I don’t care about you. My convenience/benefit/advantage is more important than your property/comfort/esthetic sensibilities.”
And the thing about dog scat is that it’s not even good fertilizer: there are few quicker ways to ruin your lawn and garden, for the foreseeable future, than to allow them to be used as the aforementioned “canine toilet.”
Can one be blamed, then, for feeling violated – when someone else deposits their stuff “in your face,” as it were; when no one benefits but the perpetrator; and when significant damage to your environment is risked, as well? Indeed, I sympathize with the writer and share their outrage: it’s rude, crude and offensive.
But now imagine that that offending and unsightly turd is large – very, very large – and very weighty. Imagine that, once extruded and hardened, it is also virtually anchored in place. Imagine, in fact, that it is not made of decaying animal and vegetable matter, but of concrete, and that no amount of stooping and no amount of scooping can ever remove it – short of using dynamite. And now imagine that blot on the landscape is not sitting on your front lawn, but right in the middle of one of the most precious and beautiful waterways in all the country.
Yes … “Sh*t!”
