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I love taking pictures of weird signs I find around my neighborhood. Despite a few great recent finds, however, the best sign I ever photographed was one I stumbled across years ago, when I was 13 or 14 years old. A redneck neighbor had gotten fed up with dogs emptying their bowels on his lawn, so he hand-made one of the angriest, most aggressive anti-poop signs I’ve seen to this day (the picture of which I dug out and scanned while home for the holidays):
Despite the sign being there for well over a year, I never heard about anyone’s head getting blown off. (I s’pose that was the end of his doggy-doo problem — as well as any impromptu drop-ins by charities, the Girl Scouts or neighbors bearing fruitcakes and cups of sugar, I imagine.) You’ve got to ask yourself, which is worse: the doo, or outing yourself as a lunatic? (Speaking of lunatic, by the way, don’t you love that after that intense diatribe, Mr. Brandy signed his name in delicate cursive?)
Share your dog-doo stories here! What’s the craziest anti-poop sign you’ve seen (or made)? Was this guy within his rights to threaten his neighbors (me included) with decapitation via handgun, or did he go overboard?
Comments (22)
Comment
When I lived in the US, one of the members of the board on the HOA lived next door. She was a crabby, evil woman that hated everyone. She tried to accuse my dogs of pooping on her lawn, which was impossible, since we took them for walks away from there and also picked up after ourselves. She tried to have us fined, and I wrote a letter to the HOA asking how they can prove that it was my dog’s poop. Were there pictures? Advanced analysis to tell (at the time, I was a veterinary nurse and threw in a lot of technical stuff regarding poop samples)? Had she actually seen this happen? If so, what sort of acid was she taken and why wouldn’t she share? She was humiliated and had to admit she lied.
posted by MN on 12-31-2007 at 7:50 am
I don’t have any stories about anti-dog poop sign. But I do have a story about dogs going in unusual places.
I work at an Iowa TV station during the morning show. In fact it’s about 8 am here and I have been working for about 4 hours already. Moving on, every once in a while we bring in guests from the local humane society to show case animals that people in the area can adopt. Well after one morning show we were waiting to tape the interview for the noon show and the dog needed to pee, but the handlers weren’t paying attention so the dog went pee on the weather green screen, and one unlucky Production Assistant had to clean up the mess.
posted by IH on 12-31-2007 at 7:52 am
I am the owner of 2 dogs. I walk them and ALWAYS pick up what they leave behind. That being said, I am very ofended when some of my neighbors who have very small dogs don’t bother picking up their little dog little poops. What, do cute dogs make cute poop? It is still a health issue. Plus I always manage to step on it. One neighbors dogs always manage to go on the edge of my front lawn. When she knows I saw it she always says “Oh sorry, I’ll come back with a bag and get that”. Yeah, right.
Still I would not do bodily harm to someone for this. It is an annoyance and nothing more.
Brandy needs to calm herself down a bit!
posted by JaneM on 12-31-2007 at 7:59 am
Brilliant.
posted by Sarah on 12-31-2007 at 8:04 am
While Brandy obviously went a little overboard, I tend to empathize with people who have legitimate claims of abuse of some sort but have no real recourse to justice.
This reminds me of a local news story many years ago of an elderly couple who wanted nothing more than to peacefully grow a vegetable garden, but despite pleas and warning signs teenagers constantly cleaned out their garden. Eventually the elderly man put up an electrified fence around it (I don’t recall if there were warning signs) and a young boy trying to steal vegetables was electrocuted. The man was rightfully prosecuted but there’s a part of me that says “I’m not bothering you and I didn’t start this – please just leave me alone and nothing will happen.”
posted by Dan T. on 12-31-2007 at 8:17 am
I used to work on the grounds at a college. Many people walked their dogs on campus. Most bagged the “stuff”, but some had the audacity to throw the bags behind our stone wall for me to run over with the mower. I didn’t mind much, but our mechanic wasn’t fond of the “droppings”,when changing blades, with the mower on the lift!
posted by gus on 12-31-2007 at 8:21 am
Dog poop can be a huge annoyance!
I have 2 large dogs and pick up after them all of the the time. This includes in my own yard. When they go, I pick it up so that the mailperson or paper girl do not step in it.
So, it really irritates me when I see people walking their dogs and they let thier dogs go in ym yard and then keep walking. It is like they think that since I have my own dogs, I will simply think that the tiny piles of poo belong to my dogs.
We have a woman in our neighborhood who has seem some dogs (not mine!) go in her yard. She gets very angry and will bag the poop, get in her car, and chase the owner down – telling them that they forgot something. Then, she throws it at them and speeds off.
posted by Daniel on 12-31-2007 at 8:39 am
Dog poop is the number 2 irritation.
posted by Doug on 12-31-2007 at 9:55 am
am i the only one who finds Brandy’s sign to be nearly unreadable? i had to read it several times, imagining out the extraneous commas to make it make sense.
posted by the creature on 12-31-2007 at 10:16 am
The tale of the new naughty neighbor-
We had neighbors move in next door and our HOA is very strict and dogs are only allowed in certain areas. I noticed the new gent walk his 2 very large dogs up the street to the “poop spot” and to be courteous, I waited my turn to walk ours. Upon noticing the two fresh and steaming piles, I got very upset as there are free bag stands set up not even 10 feet away. Plus my dogs are the only other large mutts in the area and I knew we’d be getting a HOA note in our mailbox soon enough.
So I went, grabbed a handful of bags, put my dogs inside and proceeded to pound on my neighbor’s door. After a few minutes of not answering, I decided to just stuff the bags in the door handle and hoped he’d take a hint. As I was walking towards home the door creaked open and the gent was standing in a towel. I felt a touch crazy at that point but I’d rather be introduced that way than be passing on HOA letters with a handwritten note “This must be meant for you…”
posted by Jessica on 12-31-2007 at 10:24 am
I don’t have a problem with dog’s making poop in my yard since it’s fenced but if I did this is what I would do. Bacon grease. Yes, you heard right. Bacon grease. Dogs love it. Pour some over the poop and the next time the offending dog comes over, he eats it up and you never have to pick up after it again. Make sure you tell your neighbers that this is what you do and you can bet they will watch out for their dog after that.
posted by Mike on 12-31-2007 at 11:47 am
I think that once my mom got so fed up with people walking their dogs in our yard that she scooped up the poop and dumped it on their lawn. I don’t think she had any more problems after that.
posted by Kathy on 1-1-2008 at 12:37 am
Read as: “Warning! Idiot holding dog to crap here: Well, if I catch idiot,
(they will) have choice of eating crap, (or) of having idiots head shot off. I suggest you check Sarasota County dog nuisance law. Brandy”
posted by Skeletorinyourcloset on 1-1-2008 at 1:32 pm
I had a woman neighbor who would walk her large German Shephard at 6:30-7:00 in the morning thinking no one was awake to see her and leave large mounds under my roses everyday. I had small children at the time that did not need exposed to that. I mailed her a copy of our city code and a photo of her pilings and she carried a bag with her after that.
posted by JP on 1-1-2008 at 1:39 pm
Along the same lines as what Kathy said, my (passive-agressive) brother-in-law will scoop up the poop, place it in the middle of the sidewalk, and write a note in sidewalk chalk saying “Thank you for this present. Here’s one for you.”
I’m not sure if it’s had any effect yet, but I think it’s pretty funny.
posted by Molly W. on 1-2-2008 at 11:32 am
There’s a house near where I live that has a “tombstone” made out of plywood with the lettering: “Here lies the last dog who pooped on my lawn.”
This is a cousin to the non-poo sign I saw that reads: “Here lies the last S. O. B. who left the gate open” (this was at a farm.)
posted by frumpiefox on 1-2-2008 at 12:03 pm
When I was younger, my dad bought us this gadget pooper-scooper that was black plastic, and when you squeezed the handle it opened. It was a few feet long, so you’d just place over the poop while open, close, and it would scoop up the poop. Well besides getting quite grimy, we were pretty young, and once while walking home I was swinging it around, and accidentally flung the contents onto my neighbor’s door. He was a super nice reverend. I felt pretty horrible. But besides that one instance, I always have and always will pick up my dog’s poo- one way or another.
posted by Kelly J on 1-2-2008 at 12:26 pm
Our neighbors have a mini Yorkie who they never clean up after. (Anything tiny is cute, right?) More than once, he has left a pile of poo on our welcome mat. Yes, tiny dog poo on our welcome mat!
posted by Rebekah on 1-2-2008 at 6:03 pm
I have a Toy Poodle, and yes, she leaves tiny poops, but NO, they are not cute.
I have a poop bag holder attached to her leash so any time she poops I always have baggies handy.
Sometimes large piles of poop mysteriously appear on our lawn. My dad wants to make a sign that reads, “My dog weighs 8 pounds. Where did this 9 pound pile of s*** come from?”
posted by Cheryl on 1-3-2008 at 1:00 pm
The best dog poo sign I ever saw:
“Please don’t let your dog SH** here.”
(The word was spelled out, obviously.)
posted by Greg on 1-9-2008 at 12:41 am
It is amazing how many pet owners don’t pick up after their dog. This is a huge national problem that many people are not aware of. We sell more no dog pooping signs than actual dog signs. Pet owners should always remember, “If your dog poops, please scoop”.
posted by Brian on 5-6-2008 at 9:04 pm
We are about to run this Dog doo article in our neighborhood newsletter…
**************************************
Dear Dog Lovers…
It’s very nice that you take out the pooches for a walk/run around the neighborhood.
Now be nice to your neighbors as well and clean up after them!
1. Please take a bag on your walk or run. If your dog(s) likes to “go” more than once, take several bags.
2. Pick up the dog waste with the bag: put your hand in the bag, pick up the waste then turn the back inside out, rolling it off your hand and capturing the dog waste inside.
3. Take the waste bag(s) home. If you don’t want to carry used waste bags in your hand, bring another little bag with handles to put it in. I have several nice ones I will donate to the cause.
4. Throw it in your garbage can or empty your carry bag in your garbage can.
We don’t have dogs. We don’t want to clean up after your dog. Please do not leave your dog waste/waste bags in our yards, thrown toward our garbage cans, in our driveways, in the gutters by our house and so forth.
We are avid gardeners. We don’t want to be stepping in your dog’s waste or cleaning up after an animal that is not even ours. Nor do we want to put up big NO DOG WASTE signs (kind of a no brainer, don’t you think?) or install dog waste disposal units in each and every front yard. Some of us have cats: we already clean the litterbox and pay the vet bills for them.
If you are not prepared to pick up your dog’s waste, we suggest you:
1. Fence your backyard.
2. Make the entire thing a dog waste area.
3. Confine your dog(s) to it.
Or get rid of the dog entirely if you don’t want barking, cleaning up dog waste and the other down sides of being a dog owner. But you want to keep your “best friend” right? Fine with us! Just don’t expect us to happily clean up.
We will be visiting dog owners that we see out walking with no bag. When the dog/bitch has to go, he/she has to go! If you don’t have a bag “on you,” we know you plan to leave it for us to clean up : ( We will offer a neighborly reminder plus our leftover shopping bags and carrier bags with handles for your convenient recycling as dog poop carriers.
And if you notice someone leaving dog waste in your or a neighbor’s yard or see someone out walking without a bag, call us (yes, it can be anonymously!) and we will go visit that person with a friendly reminder and bags.
posted by Carolyn & Margaret on 2-23-2009 at 6:50 pm