Shoo! Dogs hired to rid us of the scourge of bird poop!

It seems like poop of various sorts may be a recurring theme here on the blog. This morning I heard a story on the radio about a local company Wild Goose Chase that uses border collies to help shoo wild geese from green spaces surrounding office parks, golf courses, etc. In addition, a few years ago the City of Chicago hired border collies to chase sun bathing seagulls from the lakefront beaches. One of the main reasons the geese and seagulls need shooing away? Poop! Among other things, the city concluded that sea gull poop contributes to high e coli counts which result in closed beaches during the hot Chicago summers.

Here in northern Illinois we have quite a problem with Canadian Geese. Guess what, they are not seasonal residents anymore. They are year round residents. Or the ones that actually fly south in the winter have decided Canada is too far away when it's time to head back up north. They probably don't have such nice lawns there, what with all that frozen tundra, so the geese stop here in Illinois. Wherever they set up home, they leave a lot of gross poop that makes the area they occupy unsanitary and unusable by humans.

It seems that Canadian Geese are especially attracted to wide open green spaces because it provides clear sight lines and thus potential predators are more visible. I don’t know what kind of predators they would have in an office park or a golf course, although a coyote was spotted in a Quizno’s restaurant in the Loop one day last spring, so I guess that is a likely candidate.

During my lunch hour last summer I would sometimes walk around Chicago’s Grant Park and the old band shell area. Since the area is no longer used for concerts (we've got a new band shell), it has literally gone to the geese. The whole area is just disgusting – and very slippery!

Anyway, a number of firms have popped up in the area that use dogs, particularly border collies, to chase the geese away. This is great exercise for the dogs. For example, the job of chasing sea gulls occurred every half hour, about four to six hours a day, seven days a week for at least a month. Chasing the birds is a seemingly humane way to shoo them away. But you have to wonder how long it is before the geese or the gulls return when the dog isn’t there anymore. Sounds like full time employment to me.

MIA: the Winter Poop Elf

A couple weeks ago, Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn wrote in his blog that the Winter Poop Elf is a myth. His post focused on dog owners who, rather than picking up after their dogs when there is snow on the ground, artfully cover up the poop, in the mistaken belief "that the Winter Poop Elf will be along soon enough to dispose of it somehow."

I would like to attest that 1. I, too, have noticed an increase in offerings to the Winter Poop Elf, including actually witnessing a live preparation; and 2. my back yard in the winter is sufficient confirmation of the fact that the Winter Poop Elf does not exist -- unless, for some reason, s/he is intentionally neglecting us.

Cleaning up after one's dog is not the most appealing of jobs, no matter the season. Most of us haven't been picking up the "public" dropping of our dogs for that long, in my case, probably about a dozen years. My mother says she won't have a dog because she can't bring herself to pick up after it while on a walk. In fact, she is fearful of even taking a dog out for a walk in case they make a poop which she would have to clean up. I seem to recall that when Debs first got Jake, cleaning up after him was one of her biggest challenges, but she can tell you all about that!

Do you remember when there was a photo in a magazine of Brooke Shields (I think) on the beach, carrying a bag which contained dog poop (her dog was running around nearby) and the French couldn't believe that she was carrying poop. I wonder if they couldn't believe that a person (never mind a celebrity) would pick up poop... the last time I was in France, there seemed to be a lot of poop on the sidewalks, or that she didn't have someone to do her poop picking up for her.

Anyway, do tell..... have you noticed an upsurge in offerings to the Winter Poop Elf in your neighborhood, or has s/he visited?