Those Little Green Bags

I have not been a person who has kept a dog as a pet. For several years a Shetland sheepdog named Laddie lived in my childhood suburban home, and we would let him out in the morning and evening to do his doody in the street before our house or in the backyard where we children played. But when the family moved to an apartment in Queens that forbade dogs my parents unbeknownst to us put him down while telling us that they had driven him to a farm in upstate New York where he could live a happy outdoors life!. I did live amongst cats for almost thirty years and did clean their litter boxes with some regularity, but the cats also used the outdoors to move their bowels and their modesty kept their products carefully hidden.

     I appreciate that people do keep dogs in their houses and apartments. I suspect that people even keep dogs in their automobiles and travel vans. For thousands of years domesticated canines have lived and worked with human beings. Often, I have seen various canines sitting on the laps of passengers and drivers. There is a full-grown Alaskan husky who hangs halfway out of the passenger side window when the truck is in motion! I see that a puppy of this species sells for $3,500.00. These dogs are not seat belted! Dogs have been domesticated and live comfortably and dependently with humans. And dogs are housetrained to do their excretory functions outside.

     So I meet a great many folk walking their dogs as I engage in my daily saunters. Walking has become my morning exercise. I wish the human a good morning and smile at the dogs. They exhibit many different behaviors: often as they draw near they look at me with a little curiosity and pull toward me though the owner often pulls back on the leash. Sometimes the dog lunges towards me not aggressively or with violence in its gaze but with an appeal for play. Some dogs ignore me completely, as James Keelaghan notes, they continue to sniff about for possibilities. Almost my favorite response from the animal is when I walk yards behind them and having sensed my presence, follow the walker’s lead but repeatedly turn their head to measure my current distance and my present position. A similar response occurs when I pass the dog moving in the opposite direction. First the animal stares at me, and then as I pass continue to turn its head and keep me assessed. I know it is the dog’s personalities I meet on our walks. 

     But what continues to astound me is to observe adults carrying those little green bags with which they pick up the dog’s poop. I watch the process every time with some astonishment: The bag is turned inside out and the walker reaches down and scoops up the excretory piles, turns the bag carefully over and ties the top. And then owner and dog continue their walk, the dog completely innocent of their having shat and of the little green receptacle that their walker holds of that action and that now contains it. Indeed, during the clean-up the dog remains completely unconcerned and seems only to want to continue on the walk. And once again, it seems, the human is left holding the bag.

     I do appreciate the service of picking up the droppings after the dogs: I have in my life stepped in not a few piles of poop. But the entire experience continues to seem to me so bizarre.