Dogs do

Dogs were domesticated from wolves tens of thousands of years ago. We have created a wide variety of breeds, with roles as companion, hunter, protector, detector and guide.

The problem is that they shit everywhere.

I think this might be a relatively recent problem. A hundred years ago, say, on the streets of Dordrecht, a little dog shit would have gone unnoticed and unremarked amongst the mountains of equine ordure and general refuse of polite Dutch society.

And in the Australian 'burbs of my youth, I do not recall a society worried about dog-shit. Perhaps it was because we had the Cold War to worry about. Or perhaps the doggy diet of the day, left-over chop bones, meant that dog crap was a nugget of crisp calcium, apparent only as a puff of white dust under the Victa.

But it sure worries us now - and the very different approaches of the Dutch and Australians tell us something.

In Australia, we have made doggy do the problem of the owner. Sometimes councils provide plastic bags, but we expect the blighted dog owner to trail slyly after their mut, observe the act, and move in to snaffle it in a deft, warm, sweeping manoeuvre, inverting the bag and binning it.  As a parent who has committed - 'Dad you promised' - to a family dog on our return, the description of this act fills me with horror. Maybe I could be the one who feeds it and .....

In Holland, the solution is socialised, technical.  Dogs must do what dogs must do and the state will provide. We were walking around the corner the other day when confronted with this most extraordinary machine poking along the street. It most resembled a mechanical elephant, with a long, flexible snout. Its purpose? To seek out and destroy dog poo. Munching thoughtfully on a shortbread, the operator located poo, positioned the snout over it and poof!  Or is that woof? Anyway, the poo is spirited into a bin at the back and eventually, collectively, disposed of somewhere. Neither love nor money could make me open that bin.