Too many dog owners in Kilkenny are still failing the test of basic common decency

Take a look at the above pictures accompanying this story. They were snapped recently at a scenic spot close to the banks of the River Nore, 1km from Kilkenny City.

Your eyes do not deceive you; it is not an unseasonal and inappropriately-located outdoor display of poinsettia. It is dozens and dozens — perhaps close to 100 — bags filled with dog excrement, thrown into an area just off the main Lacken walk throroughfare, close to where the new boardwalk is being constructed. Coincidentally (or not) it is also right beside a sign urging people to clean up after their dog.

What can we infer from these pictures? What does it tell us about the mentality of the person/s responsible? Can it truly be the actions of just one environmental sadist who likes to walk this route? Is it a team effort — would it make it worse to learn that more than one person throws their bags of dog faeces here, and thinks it is acceptable behaviour?
Do they desecrate the area without a care, or perhaps even enjoy committing this needless act, so close to a bin and right beside a sign imploring people to clean up after their dogs?

They must surely be the most egregious of offenders — those who pick up the waste, bag it and then fire the bag into the nearest tree, bush, ditch, hedge, or whatever other piece of natural or built heritage is apparently deserving of desecration. They may whinge that there is ‘there is no bin nearby’, but it’s a pathetic excuse, even on the rare occasion where it can be true.

There is another dog owner cohort, however. They are the people who would honestly never countenance littering the bags, but when their dog enters a squat position to perform his business, the owner has curiously become distracted by something else — entranced in their phone, the music in their headphones, or some far off event —conveniently missing the act, as the dog sheepishly makes good his escape.

It is shocking that it even needs to be said in this day and age, but clearly the message is simply not getting through to some owners: Clean up after your animals! This issue is one that has surely been around since early man domesticated the lobos that dared follow our ancestors close to their campfires hoping tobe thrown a few scraps.

And yet, it continues to plague the countryside, the city and towns and villages across Kilkenny. That is despite the numerous campaigns, signs and helpful leaflets designed to educate people on the matter.
It’s despite the free bags on offer along various popular walkways and thoroughfares. It is even in spite of the threat of fines, of CCTV cameras, and the public/social mores that shame and frown on such thoughtless, ignorant behaviour. Playing pitches maintained by our many volunteers in various different sports, green areas in estates where children gather — all are routinely left destroyed by dog owners who could not care less and nonchalantly turn a blind eye.

Every morning, walking through the city streets —people on their way to work or school — have to navigate a minefield of fresh deposits. The early dog walkers move in advance of the street sweeping machines, leaving dawn ‘dead drops’ swept up and turned into a feculent brown paste that smears the marble of the Medieval Mile.

It doesn’t have to be like this. There are other European cities (not all, I will admit) where the problem is notably absent. There are places where the problem is considerably less, in nations of dog owners and animal lovers like our own.

My point is not to have a go at all dog owners. I love dogs and my family have had dogs all our lives. It just feels like there are more than a small minority of ‘bad apple’ owners. The sheer volume of waste, left all over the place, leads me to believe that lazy or bad dog owners make up a statistically significant percentage.

Are you always a good, responsible dog owner? And if you are, is there a chance that there is at least one person you know — a friend, a family member — who is not? It may be the case. Common decency, it would seem, is still not all that common.
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