Gross.

OK, it's time for me to speak up.  I've been biting my tongue about this for way too long.

Or, really, it's just that life gets busy and I have better things to worry about. 

But here it is:  Someone in our neighborhood is not picking up after their dog.  We find chunks of poop in the grass but mostly on our sidewalk.  And this unsanitary carelessness has been going on for the last 2-3 years.

But there's a method to this person's madness.   Or, perhaps I should say that there is a madness to his method.  Instead of doing what he ought (which is to reach down with a plastic bag and pick it up, like the rest of us dog-owners do), the person must be breaking up the poop and tossing little balls of it around our yard to disguise its presence.

As you might imagine, we step on the little poop balls when we're dashing to the car or unloading groceries.  We drive over the little poop balls with the stroller.  In the winter, they get flung out of our snow-blower.  In the summer, they fling out of our lawnmower.  Those that we miss sit and bake in the sunshine until they're hard little rocks.  It is gross, annoying, and absolutely ridiculous for the pleasant little neighborhood that we live in.

Do I know who's doing it?  Yes, I think so.  There's this man who walks his small dogs by our house so frequently throughout the day; and, despite his frequency of dog-walking, never once have I seen him with a full plastic bag. 

Rather, he carries in his back pocket a small shovel, encased in a plastic bag.  And I caught him in the act one time recently, although I saw him from a distance.  He was bent over with a small hand-shovel, doing something strange in my yard.  I knew he couldn't be weeding for me, nor planting flowers.  When he looked up and discovered that I had just rounded the corner with my own dog and saw him, he was so startled that he forgot to wave in response to mine -- a sure sign of guilt, I concluded.

So what am I going to do about this pesky neighbor who lives just two doors down?


I'm starting an archive of photos with my camera-phone, and then one day soon I plan to unleash my fury on the unsuspecting dog-walker with a series of photographs taped to the ground or to the tree (I haven't decided which yet) to let him know that the little collection he leaves behind for us has been--among other things--duly noted.

Wish me luck.