Seattleites have strong opinions on where dogs’ poop should go, judging by recent responses to our asking whether it’s OK to toss doggy doo bags into a neighbor’s trash can.
The big brown picture: Readers are divided on whether other people’s curbside bins are fair game for disposing of dog waste or whether those little poo bags should be hauled to a public receptacle — even if that public bin is some distance away.
Between the lines: One Axios Seattle reader, Leah Anderson, told us she regularly carries her border collie’s “not insignificant bag of poop” for a good half-mile or more to avoid dropping it in another person’s garbage bin.
- On the rare occasions she’s used someone’s home trash bin, she wrote, “I felt like I was breaking some kind of rule.”
- “What rule? I don’t know.”
Several readers said it could be OK to toss a poop-filled bag into someone’s household garbage bin on the day it’s set out to the curb for collection.
- Even so, if that bin sitting on the curb has already been emptied, adding a poo bag at that point would be a faux pas, many said.
- “It will sit there for a week stinking up the bin,” one reader wrote in an email.
- Wandering onto someone’s property to find their trash bin was also generally considered a no-no.
Others were adamant that dog owners have an obligation to transport that dookie back home, no matter the distance.
- Some said dog owners shouldn’t even use public trash cans on the sidewalk to dispose of dog poop. (Confession: I toss my dog’s crap in such bins regularly.)
- “The poop is the dog owner’s property,” wrote reader Tom Bekey, who added that owners should “consider the smell” and how employees of nearby businesses could be exposed to it.
- “One and only way to deal with dog poop is to TAKE IT HOME.”
And definitely don’t drop it in a trash can at a bus stop, one reader wrote…