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First off, there is an Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists. Last week this group had a trade group gathering in Nashville, and CityRoom reports that "while much of the talk at the seventh annual Pooper Scooper Convention, as usual, centered on business, it also featured the yearly tribute" to the death of the pooper scooper. That's right, the instrument in which the law is named after is nearly extinct.
New York was the first major city to adopt the pooper scooper law, requiring dog owners to pick up after their pups. And while that law is still in effect, the scoopers themselves have been replaced by plastic bags. The site has some interesting background on how the scooper was invented. The story goes like this:
Thirty-something years ago a man showed up at a cocktail party, furious, carrying in one hand a shoe covered in dog feces. After cleaning up, the man was introduced to another guest -- an inventor, the hostess noted -- and he could not help but snip: “Why don’t you invent something to pick up dog poop?”Robert Veech, the inventor, did just that. He sketched out a design on a cocktail napkin on the spot. The device, called the Dogmatic, was not the first scooper, but it was among the most important. Within days Mr. Veech’s prototype had found its way to the hands of John V. Lindsay, then mayor of a city that had been ridiculed as a minefield of dog waste.
Perhaps they are due for a comeback — couldn't you just picture tiny puppy owners toting around designer scoopers?
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How are they extinct? Obviously it's silly to use them in the city when you can use a poop bag instead. But I'm sure people still use them in the 'burbs. We had one when I was a kid for clearing out the poo from the backyard.
Then you just have a shovel covered in feces to take home...not awesome. Nicemarmot is right though; in the 'burbs, where you can keep poop covered tools in a shed or whatever, they make sense.
As a cat owner I have a shovel covered in feces at home all the time. Luckily they're not usually wet like dog poo, but still...
...gross & true. +1 for toxoplasmosis!
now that was a headline that nobody could resist. NOBODY!
You know what makes a great dog poop bag? A newspaper bag. I don't always use one, but when I do, I prefer the New York Times....
what's wrong with those biodegradable plastic bags that come on a roll you attach to your leash? they work for me!
I think they should simply enforce the scooper law better. I have to walk through all sorts of dog poop land-mined grassy areas in order to get my own dog's poop in a bag.
What's wrong with them is they cost money. Do what I do; grab the plastic bags off the street (Brooklyn tumbleweeds), and when your dog poops use them to pick it up. Bam, two boids with one stone.
you can also use this new product called ScooPup Pocket developed by a friend of mine in Seattle:
http://www.shop.tinygrowl.com/product.sc?productId=1
That website doesn't really explain what the product is or what makes it special. Is it really a little bag that you carry poop in? Is it for putting the poop in after you put it in a plastic bag or do you put the poop into it directly? Neither really makes any sense.
i haven't seen one in person since i don't own a dog and my friend lives in Seattle, but i believe the way it works is this: you have pockets for clean bags, and a pocket for the 'used' bags. the inner lining is some sort of antibacterial poly something. the bag opens up and you place the plastic bag over the lining. then you scoop up the poo with 2 linings between you and the poo. then you can deposit the used bag inside and continue on your way until you can throw it out. it's a more attractive way of carrying around a bag of dog poo without needing to carry it in your hands. there's also a pocket for a cell phone or keys i think....
Go to the "Home" page and watch the video. I think whoever made it complicates the demo by removing the pocket from the leash; but otherwise it actually looks like it works well, especially if using a recycled grocery bag that may have holes.
Thanks, T.Howard. i'm not much of a spokesman, lol.
this is the actual site with the video:
http://www.tinygrowl.com/
Maybe I was spoiled (or rewarded for good training), but since my dog was trained to never even pee on the sidewalk, her pull towards the curb gave me the 3-5 second warning to slip a page of the Times under her butt. In her ten or so years as a New Yorker, I think I had to scrape it up off the street less than a dozen times in her lifetime.
Unfortunately, I no longer subscribe to the paper edition of the Times, so if I get another dog, I'll have to worry about going through three or four MacBook Pro's a day. That might get pretty pricey!