Walking etiquette

[Jules]

I'm not so sure about the flicking poo down the drain thing. It's not too good for the waterways that it gets washed into.

Most of the time my dog won't poo while he's on his leash, and if he does, I think he just really has to go. I let him go on the nature strip- which technically is council property anyway. I pick it up also. It's hard to get him to stop marking his scent everywhere... I say NO and keep pulling him along. Sometimes he does it really fast before I notice though.

There was a funny ad on TV about a guy that walked his dog past the same house every day and let him poo on the same guys front yard. The owner of the house always looked out angrily and the dog owner was having a good chuckle and would walk off. You see him do it a couple of times, and then one day he comes up again and starts to let his dog do his business and the owner had a sprinkler system installed and quickly turned it on on them! Quite funny.

[2pyrs]

It's not just rain water that goes into them. The reason for the drains is to clear the rain off the streets and yards, some systems are connected to the homes,(down spouts and toilets.) Here we have very little run off from our yards and homes into the sewers. Most the run off goes into ditches, but in the end it all ends up in the local creek or draining into the lake. When a plan goes wrong, sewer drains to the lake up stream from a park made for swimming is one of the many problems you run into here. They post and alert when the bacteria is high or when we don't have a good rain and wind to move the water around in the lake. So it is in all areas with sewers.Black water or gray you could not pay me to take a drink from a faucet without it being filtered one more time and even then ??
2pyrs
The real question is what to do with what you clean up in your yard ? In a pile in the back yard, bag it and throw it in the garbage and taken to land fill, only to have the run off effect. Plastic bags ? No real answers are there ? It's just what do you want to step in or what do you want to drink ?

If it looks like it and smells like it, well it must be it.
2pyrs

[Jules]

That sounds disgusting 2pyrs. Yuck.. I wouldn't go for a swim near your place!
Over here they urge people not to let it wash down the drains- the drain system must be different? I wouldn't have a clue. Most people don't pick up their "barkers eggs" (as my Dad would say) around here- they are everywhere. I've often wondered about the effectiveness of taking them to a different place ie the tip, because as you said 2pyrs about the run off effect. I do bag all mine up and put it in the bin here at home. I have seen little dog poo recycling bins, like a compost bin, and you put some sort of bacteria in to help it along and apparently turns it into nutritious fertiliser for the garden. Apparently the end product isn't offensive in smell, but you shouldn't use it on your veggie garden, just ornamental plants. Another way your beloved dogs can help in the garden is by you following them around with an old pan with a handle and catch them when they pee- and that's an organic weed killer. Oops here I go again.. always veering off the subject!

[winnie]

You know I am moving to a house and was thinking of training my dogs to go in a certain area....then the rest of my lawn will be pretty (hopefully) and no one will see or smell the poop, and it would be easier to clean...however I go to the dog park all the time in the small part and it is basically a large yard and they go anywhere they please...you think it will be harder to train them b/c of this or maybe it doesnt even matter? Just all this talk about picking up after your dog got me thinking...if I were to train them anyone have any pointers?thanks

[Jamiya]

I trained Nala to go in one section of the yard, and Bonnie pretty much follows suit. I just took Nala out on leash every time for a while and took her to "the spot" and gave her the "go potty" command. I stood there and she could get to the end of the leash and not beyond. When I stopped taking her out on leash, I would walk out with her and go stand near the area and she would do her thing there. Now she goes other places as well since I stopped being so observant about it - but she mainly poos in that area, for the most part.

I took Bonnie out on leash the first few times I took her out, but then I noticed she tended to go in that area anyway. Must have been the scent of Nala's previous deposits...

Some people buy a post and put it in the ground and teach the dogs to pee there. Some posts are specially made with some sort of scent on it already, I think.

As far as disposing of poo - I think some people actually bring it inside and flush it. Flicking down sewers is not a good idea - we actually have little notices painted above our drains that say something to the effect of the water going out to the streams, and a picture of a fishey.

We don't pick up the poo in our backyard. We used to have two small dogs and they pooped small enough that by the time my husband mowed, he could just mow it over. It pretty much had "gone away" by then. Now Nala and Bonnie poop at least as small (if not smaller) than the small dogs did, so we just ignore it. There's no smell, either.


Jamiya

[Mary_NH]

one of my neighbors has a Scottie and my son and I have been raking my front yard. The Scottie is allowed to roam and the turds I've been cleaning up in the front yard have been his. My dog is out back and a GSD, this stuff I've been picking up isn't much bigger than what my cats do...so I've done my detective work and determined it's the Scottish Terrier

so I get my shovel and scoop up the offending material, walk to the road with it - and HEAVE it across the road into the yard of the Scottie's owner. Turn around and walk home with my shovel. If they see me fine....I'm "assuming" they'll eventually get the idea and stop the dog from pooping on my freshly-raked front yard but they are basically idiots so I have a feeling I'm gonna be shoveling and heaving quite often. But someday they may find some GSD offerings being hurdled at their house

[2pyrs]

Jules
I wouldn't go for a swim near your place!

The name of the place here is Lake Erie and you could not pay me to go in it , I believe all sewer systems are the same. I have never heard of one just for ones toilet.The water treatment plants need water to clean up the waste. As for the product you are talking about I had one some years back and it did not work. The powder you put in it does dissolve the waste but the problem is you can't have hard soil. It won't drain well if you don't have soil that is sand or very soft so in the end it just fills up and you can't add any more for some time. My worry is run of into good well water.As to the powder it does not get rid of the bacteria and it should never be used on or near any plants that are for eating and I would not get the soil on my hands. I have been gardening for more then 30 years now and the only compost I us is natural. Dog poo is made from meat by product and very high just like human waste in varies bacteria's. For more info you might want to read about the Bio Toil, we are looking in to one for our new dome house we well be building next year.

2pyrs

[loonyluna]

Hey 2pyrs, your post got me wondering about the sewer system in my city so I looked it up and here's what it says:

"Many of these storm sewers discharge their contents directly into local waters, which are important for recreational activities, as well as habitat for fish and other aquatic wildlife. Unlike domestic wastes collected by sanitary sewers, the contents of these storm sewers are generally not treated at wastewater treatment plants prior to their discharge into local waters."

So you see? There are seperate sewers for toilets.

[2pyrs]

I'll be darn. When your right your right. I just can't figure then why they call for alerts on swimming here. As a kid I remember go into the sewers and well I don't need to tell you what was in there. My son works for the company that makes the pipes that go into the lake to bring in the water to the treatmeant plants. I think I well take a trip to the water treatment plant here since it is just around the corner from us. I just have to know how it works. The other thing that I don't understand is when we have a flood they warn people about the water and raw sewage in it. Hay don't get me wrong here I am not trying to prove you wrong I just always thought it was all one system and it would be nice to know why and how they do it. Thanks..

2pyrs

[Jamiya]

The water treatment plants clean the water from your toilets and sinks, etc. But they don't clean the water that goes down the drains in the streets, nor do they clean the water in the lakes!! (They may USE water from the lakes, but the whole lake is not cleaned.)

So, that's why you have swim advisories - they test the lake water and if it is high in contaminants (for whatever reason) then they issue an advisory. Contaminants can come from many places - people dumping stuff in the water (cleaning products, dog poo, whatever), factory waste (usually regulated now), etc.

Perhaps in a flood the sewer systems get backed up or something? Or the water treatment plants can't work? I don't know enough about that part of it. My husband would know, but he is out of town.


Jamiya

[honeybears]

you will get the alerts when something failed in teh treament plants and they overflow or leak.

2pyrs i have heard you re not supposed to go i Lake Erie which is so scary beacsue it is huge.


And I did recently hear dont remember from where that dog waste is the biggest culprit in contaminated water. Would like to find out where i heard that from

honeybear

[2pyrs]

I don't agree with that (dog waste) PCB'S are the problem and boat fuel.Car oil and antifreeze,soaps at one time. Then we had run off from farms for a few years DDT. into the creeks and to the lake. I know animal waste could be a part of it but I feel it would be very little. My son said that leach beds are still a problem and some systems still do run into the pipes and into the lakes. He said it wont flow from the sewer pipes to the water treatment plant from the pipes with out water, lots of water.He showed me the system and said it is not air tight and water from the lake is used to pump into the slug into a holding pond and sent into the plant threw various other holding ponds and chems added and filtered. A closed system does not exist the rain water in some cities runs into the drains from the street and into the pipes to move the waste to the plant ,over flow goes into the lake or other holding areas.
http://www.great-lakes.net/teach/pollution/water/water5.html

We all have to start to work harder at cleaning up what we get ride of.

2pyrs

[Jamiya]

My husband came home and he explained sewers to me, LOL!

Some cities have separate systems - storm sewers and what they call sanitary sewers (which are unsanitary....). Storm sewers are the drains in the streets and collect rainwater and dump into streams and lakes and things. Sanitary sewers take the waste from your house - toilets, sinks, etc - and go to the treatment plant. This is the ideal system.

It used to be that sewers were all combined sewers - meaning the storm and the sanitary sewers all ran through the same pipes and are....well, combined! This is a problem because if you get a lot of rain, then there is too much volume heading into the water treatment plant and it can't possibly keep up - so the "overflow" gets dumped into the lake. This is your raw sewage after a flood problem.

Any new sewer systems built have to be separate - no more combined sewers. But it would cost a ton of money to redo all the sewers in the older areas.

Our sewers in our little suburb are not combined - but the ones downtown in the city proper are combined because they are older. Most major cities have combined sewers for this reason.


Jamiya