Dog poop wars reach new low as owners leave bags on park benches

Dog owners are being slammed, not for failing to pick up after their pooches, but for the truly bizarre thing some people are doing with the poop afterwards.

There has been some fascinating research done on the psychology of dogs – why they pee on trees, hate the postman and are so determined to sniff each other’s bums?

But has anyone ever done a deep dive on the mindset of their owners? The behaviour of some has left people utterly baffled.

They’re the owners that do use council-provided bags to pick up after their pets when out on walks, but for some unknown reason, leave the freshly bagged poop lying around rather than popping them in a bin.

The issue has long been a problem on beaches, with volunteers often reporting finding dozens of the bags on clean-ups. It has also been a problem in parks, with people finding bags of doggie doo on pathways or – most annoying – dangling off the branches of trees.

Poo bags are often seen dangling from trees. Picture: Scott Fletcher.

But a picture taken on the Gold Coast this week surely takes the (doggie) biscuit – a collection of freshly filled poop bags scattered along a bench at Cobber Park in Mudgeeraba.

Commentators on the Mudgeeraba Community Connect Facebook page, where the picture was posted, were understandably upset.

“That’s disgusting, what is wrong with these people,” one person wrote

“No excuse. Take the poop home and put on your own chair if you can’t be bothered walking to the bin and disposing of it,” another said, while another person simply asked, “Why even bother picking it up?”

A bench at Cobber Park in Mudgeeraba this week. Picture: Luke Nivison-Smith / Mudgeeraba Community Connect Facebook page.

Why indeed. It’s often been said that if aliens came to earth and observed people picking up after their dogs, they’d assume dogs were the higher life form and people were their obedient servants.

Seeing all the bagged poop lying around, the aliens may be tempted to assume the dogs needed smarter help.

Why bag it, then leave it lying around as litter anyway?

At least in its unbagged form, the poop has the possibility of decomposing naturally, or being washed into the ground the next time it rains. But encased in plastic, it’s going to be an issue for far longer.

The problem has also been an issue on Gold Coast beaches. Picture: Scott Fletcher.

The logic is impossible to fathom, as another person tired of seeing filled poop bags hanging from a pole in her local park recently noted.

“I just removed all the dog poop bags from near the basketball court in Driftwood Park, around 20 of them. Some had been hanging on the bin post for months,” she said.

“Either put the in the bin near the playground 50 metres away or leave it on the ground to decompose as I do not understand the logic of hanging them there for someone else to clean up, it is just laziness.”

A bag of dog poo and a banana peel left on a wooden seat at beachside showers at Burleigh.

Some dog owners have admitted that they leave bags behind if their doggie deposits near the start of walks so they’re not left holding a stinky bag the whole way around. The idea is they will collect the bag on the way out.

“I will leave a bag on my trail if it is at the beginning of a walk and collect it on my return. I also collect every other bag I see when I am leaving. At times someone has done it for me also. Don’t always assume it is abandoned, and think the worst of people,” one person said.

But it appears the practice has become so widespread that the amount of people “forgetting” to collect the deposits is creating a wasteland (literally) of little bags of horror littering our parks.

It makes it ever more important to watch your step and – as we found this week – even watch where you sit in our public spaces.

Truly, some research needs to be done into the mindset of people who think this is in any way ok.

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