ROTHENBURGER: Science finally has an answer to those annual dog-poo blues

“I would have thought the situation would have been addressed by mid-March,” Citizen X told me.

It wasn’t. About three weeks ago, a street sweeper went by and cleaned the stuff off the road but it continued to accumulate on the boulevard. “With the weather getting warmer, you can imagine the smell,” he says. Not to mention the health hazard.

So, off went some photos to the attention of community services manager Tammy Blundell at the City’s Bylaw Enforcement Department — now Community Services Division — and a request for someone to go ask the folks who own the dog to clean up the mess. This is part of one of the emails he got back:

“I have asked staff to monitor and patrol the area but as far as catching dog owners who do not pick up their dog’s feces we can only fine/ ticket if we actually catch them.”

A photo of the owner, and the dog doing its business, would be required. “Unfortunately the photos you provided only show dog feces on the ground and I cannot link the feces to the actual owner. The Dog Responsibility Bylaw only allows us to fine an owner of the dog not the actual dog.”

While it might be a step forward if we COULD start fining the dogs instead of their owners, there’s still the issue of proving who’s responsible.

Well, there’s an answer to that. A few years ago (actually, a lot of years ago) somebody — I think it was a couple of guys from the chamber of commerce — decided to pull an April Fool’s gag. They called the media together at Albert McGowan Park and unveiled a gizmo they claimed was a dog-poo DNA analyzer.

All you had to do was put some dog droppings into this contraption and, presto, it would tell you the DNA of the offending canine. I presume you then simply had to keep watch until you saw a dog do his business where he/ she shouldn’t, collect the evidence and pop it into the dog-poo analyzer, then compare it with the previous sample.

Nobody believed the hoax but everyone admired its creativity. Turns out, though, it was simply ahead of its time.

An American entrepreneur named Tom Boyd has invented a method for testing dog poop and it’s proving to be a real money maker.

During his research into the issue, he found that 40 per cent of dog owners don’t pick up after their pets. That indicates a serious market — Boyd’s Biopet company brings in several million dollars in revenue each year, and the prediction is it will grow to $120 million.

It’s pretty simple. If the landlord of a housing development signs on, residents must pay 40 bucks to have a swab taken of their dog. Then, if it has a dump where it shouldn’t, DNA from the swab is compared to DNA from the poo sample.

The system is now being used in Canada and apparently acts as a powerful deterrent.

Seems to me it would work equally as well if City Hall were to insist on taking DNA from every dog in town when it’s licensed. Admittedly, it wouldn’t be popular with dog owners, who aren’t known for their willingness to pay for their dog licences at all, let alone a DNA test.

This comes too late for Citizen X, anyway. Kamloops still uses the old point and shoot method, which involves taking a picture of somebody NOT doing something.

Community Services supervisor Mo Perri explained to me that unless there’s proof, the $100 ticket issued under the dog ownership bylaw won’t stand up in court.

“Unfortunately, that’s how it works,” he said. He compared it to loud barking, in which the City recommends complainants make a recording.

Alternatively, he said, a complainant could testify as to observing the miscreant dog do its thing and then also observing that the owner didn’t scoop, as long as the two can be linked. He’s not sure if a fine has actually ever been levied for such an offence.

Perri also said his division does its best to educate people about pooping and scooping, and sometimes patrols hot spots like the Rivers Trail, but dog owners tend to become very well behaved when they see someone in a uniform.

There’s good news in Citizen X’s neighbourhood, though. Finally deciding to take things into his own hands, he tossed a dozen poo bags onto the boulevard; Wednesday morning, the bags and the poo were gone.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.

by Mel Rothenburger

ROTHENBURGER: Science finally has an answer to those annual dog-poo blues

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