Suzanne Harrington: Abandoned dog poo is a flagrant faecal violation of social contract
A sign about cleaning up after a dog at a beach; the thing with not picking up after your dog is that it’s the dogs who get banned from public spaces, not the humans. Picture: Denis Minihane.
Like Irish summers, Irish beaches are not as they used to be.
Oat lattes out of horseboxes, vans doing Biscoff crepes, pizzas hot from portable pizza ovens, even the occasional display of DryRobe in the un-Irish August heat; we’ve come a long way from anoraks and Mr Whippy and huddling behind windbreakers, shivering.
In post-Covid climate change Ireland, it’s all Raybans and Birkenstocks, paddleboards and kayaks, rash vests and cool boxes.
And dogs. Everyone has a dog now. Not old-school mutts, but a profusion of labradoodlecockapoos being pranced up and down the beach on leads.
Tiny fluffy Bichons, daft spaniels, French bulldogs, even the occasional dachshund — the dogs on Irish beaches are nothing if not fashionable.
People have spent money on their Covid dogs. Apart from a few joyful Labradors bounding in the surf, none are off lead.
Why? Is this a rule? How can dogs be themselves if they always have a human attached to their neck?
A man strides down the beach, dragging his defecating pooch after him. I call out to him — maybe he hasn’t realised his poor dog needs to stop.
He has — the man pauses briefly, then marches on, giving me a cheery wave. Not a poo bag in sight.
Later, a posh lady allows her posh dog to unburden itself in the middle of the sand.
She pats herself down for a poo bag, discovers she has none, and covers it up with some seaweed. Great.
Try to remember which clump of seaweed to avoid, on your way into the water.
In the UK, there are 13m dogs. Two of them are mine — massive mobile poo factories; if I didn’t pick up after them, I’d be responsible for a one-woman outbreak of toxoplasmosis on the south coast where I live.
Leaving the house without poo bags is like leaving the house without keys, phone, wallet; leaving dog poo on the ground in public is like leaving your baby on the bus — you just wouldn’t.
The Green Party is on it, but only one €150 fine was issued in all of Dublin since 2019. One single fine.
“Post-colonial mindset,” says my companion, another Irish native who has lived abroad a long time.
“Resistance to rules, the equation of authority with autocracy. Systems and structures perceived as things to be outsmarted or ignored. Or not applicable to you.”
Crikey. Really? And yet it makes sense. Running red lights, jaywalking, not picking up dog poo — when it comes to the small stuff, our thinking remains free-range.
However, the thing with not picking up after your dog is that it’s the dogs who get banned from public spaces, not the humans.
In order for dogs to be welcome everywhere — and we are all dog-owners now — we need to align our actions to their freedom. Poo bags in every pocket.
