Dodge the dog doo

Or how I learned to stop worrying and check my shoes.

This part of Spain is full of dog shit. I fail to understand how it is that people can be so ignorant as to take their pets out on a walk and let them shit on the sidewalk and choose to do nothing about it. It’s not only here – same in every Spanish city I’ve been to: Murcia, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Granada, Cordoba. It’s something in the Spanish national identity, I’ve decided. I think that they’re too proud to bend over and be seen collecting still-warm dog poo with their hand thrust in a plastic bag.

The funny thing is that after a while, the foreigners here – German, Swiss, English – soon begin doing the same. I guess it must seem futile to pick up your daschund’s little fruit when some big Alsatian has just cacked all over the seafront walkway or the children’s play area. When I’m out walking, I watch carefully all the dog walkers hoping, madly hoping, that one day I’ll catch them walking away from their pet’s steaming pile. Then I’ll catch ‘em by the scruff of the neck, rough ‘em up and smear their face in the turd. NO, no! No, I don’t contemplate violence, but it sure does get up my nose sometimes.

So this morning, at last, I caught a guy walking away from his dog’s doo doo. The animal had squeezed one out in the shrubbery surrounding the children’s play area near my house and the owner didn’t even look back. I called to him

“Oye, senor. No se puede dejar el perro cagar aqui. Los ninos juegan aqui!”

He was mighty embarrassed. His pale north European face reddened to the roots of his white hair. His reply? “Do you know how difficult it is to pick up the poop in the shrubs?”

Well, actually no, I don’t know how difficult it is because I haven’t CHOSEN TO OWN A FUCKING DOG. Excuse my language, but you get a dog, you’re making a pact to look after it, care for it, feed it, walk it and clean up after it. If it’s hard, get yourself one of those handy garbage picking sticks that the pros use, do what you need to do, but don’t leave it where my foot is going to get near it. We spend thousands on water and sewage treatment, then pet owners leave their festering messes all over the place. Sheesh.

So, then funny thing is that a lady across the road then joins in. The Spanish LOVE a fray and will take any opportunity to raise their voices at one another. She’s lambasting him while on looks a rather retarded neighbour of mine whom I told off for smoking the lift the other week. She hasn’t spoken to me since (do I care?) and probably now thinks that I am one of those people who go around telling everyone to behave and not to do this or to do that. And you know what? I am. After spending most of my life locked up tight in a prison of shyness and not wanting to offend, I now just say what I think. It really is the best way to get the ire out of you. Say it when you feel it, don’t repress it and let it twist and fester. Be calm, be polite, but tell it how you see it.