Walked a mate’s dog, but didn’t scoop the poop … Am I still a good friend?

My friend broke her foot and I offered to take her dog for a walk. I took a poop bag with me but, when it came time to make use of it, I just couldn’t do it. The incident occurred in a park with no one around. Does not scooping up the poop cancel out a good deed?
H.B., Cronulla, NSW

Credit: Illustration by Simon Letch

What a coincidence. I also broke my foot recently. (I tell everyone it’s a footy injury, which is true. I slipped on a stair and injured my footy.) And another coincidence: I also have a dog who needs daily walks (her name is Specky because she’s covered in speckles. I’m a writer, I’m very good at names). One more coincidence: my wife was overseas during my injury, so I also had to rely on friends to walk my dog (and when friends were unavailable, I hired a knee scooter, attached the dog’s lead to the handles and let her drag me around the park like Ben-Hur in a tiny, four-wheeled mobility chariot with a grocery basket).

So I know first-hand what a monumental favour it was to walk your broken-footed friend’s dog. But as a member of the human race, I also know first-hand what a nauseating ordeal it is scraping poop out of shoe treads with a pointy stick. When placed upon the scales of justice, an unscooped poop will always outweigh a dog-walking favour, especially if the dog has been eating cheese or Homebrand “meaty” dog loaf. Ask yourself the age-old philosophical question: if a poop falls in an empty park and nobody is around to see it, did it really fall? Yes, it fell. You can see it. It’s right there. And it’ll stay there until the grass gets mown, or there’s a monsoonal downpour, or someone thoughtfully carries it away on the bottom of their shoe.

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