NO PUBLIC POO PLEASE!

Ballymacool Park, Letterkenny

We take Oscar to our local park for a walk every day and it is a joy to walk there with him.  The park is beautiful and is truly a gem in Letterkenny's crown.  However, I have noticed that the place is becoming used by some dog owners to allow their pet to use the park as their lavatory and  this is not a good thing!

A lot of money and work went into giving Letterkenny this fabulous park which is enjoyed by walkers, dog owners, children and families of the area and this should be respected by dog owners.

Notice in park

There are of course many signs up asking owners to pick up after their dogs (if they even allow them to "go" in the park in the first place!).  There are even bins throughout the park where the dog owner can pick up their dog's poo and bin it.  Why then do some owners think it is perfectly fine to allow their dog to foul this wonderful place?

Oscar is only 6 months old and he is trained to do his poo and pee in our yard for us to pick up.  He does this prior to his daily walks and has never, nor will never, defecate outside the area we appoint for him.

And if Oscar can be taught to do this so too can other dogs.  It's not difficult and it is such a joy to take a dog for a walk who is not going to do his business during the walk.

From DogTalk101.blogspot:

"Dog poop is a problem we deal with on a daily basis. But is it dangerous? How much do you know? Is pet waste a health hazard?

Here are the dangerous facts:

1. Dog poop is NOT good fertilizer. It's toxic to your lawn! The high nutrient concentration in dog poop will burn and discolor the grass, creating "hot spots".

2. Nearly two decades ago, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classified pet waste as a dangerous pollutant in the same category as toxic chemicals and oil.

3. You may not live near water, but unscooped poop from your yard is carried by overland water flow or is washed into storm drains, ending up in far away streams, rivers and ground water. 

4. The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirms pet waste can spread parasites including hookworms, ringworms, tapeworms and Salmonella. When infected dog poop comes into contact with your lawn, the poop will eventually "disappear", but the parasite eggs can linger for years! When a human or animal comes into contact with that soil through everyday activities like walking barefoot, gardening or playing, they risk infection from those eggs ... even years after the poop is gone.

5. Pet waste is teaming with E. Coli and other harmful bacteria including fecal coliform bacteria, which causes serious kidney disorders, intestinal illness, cramps and diarrhea in humans. (There are 23 million fecal coliform bacteria in a single gram of pet waste!) 

6. Dog poop often contains roundworm larvae, which cause blindness. If a human ingests a roundworm larva, it can migrate through the body causing disease to the brain, lungs, kidneys, liver, heart or eyes. So when people (especially children) touch soil, dog toys or anything that has been in contact with dog feces and then touch their mouths, they can become infected. Dog poop doesn't just "wash away" or disappear. So if you're not disposing of your dog's waste, you're putting yourself, your family, your dog and your water supply at risk."

The green at the Childrens' Playground

Surely most dog owners are aware of the dangers of leaving their dog's poo lying around?  If they are not, they should be!  

What is most disturbing to me is the fact that much of the dog poo is on a little area of grass directly beside the childrens' playground!
This means that children using this area who wander out onto the green area are in direct danger of ending up with serious, life-threatening diseases simply because a dog owner decided that leaving their dogs' waste behind was acceptable behaviour!

Nasty droppings in the park!

There is also the added annoyance a person who steps in the stuff rightly feels.  They then have to attempt to wipe their shoes, probably on the grass, thus spreading any worms eggs or viruses in the poo.  Not only that, there may be some traces left of their shoe and they then walk into their house where the germs are spread further and possibly laying down danger for babies in the house or visiting the house.

Dog poo is nasty and potentially dangerous stuff.  If you can't train your dog to do his toilet at home prior to  his walk then it is incumbent on YOU to pick it up and bin it so that some innocent child doesn't end up very ill or worse!

MY FIRST FORMAL TRAINING SESSION

My humans do training with me, things like not pooping or peeing in the house ~ I leaned that pretty quickly.  I know how to sit when told and Catherine, one of my humans has even trained me to "floor" which basically means I lie down flat on the floor. She was very impressed when I did it the 2 nd time she showed me.  She just put her hand down to the floor when I was sitting down and I automatically followed it to the floor (in case there was a treat there).  She was delighted and that made me happy so when my other human came into the kitchen and Catherine showed him, I did it straight away when told.  I continue to impress them!

Me ~ concentrating

The other evening I was taken to the car and we went on short drive and landed at a place I hadn't been before.  Apparently we were there for my first "Formal Training Session".  There were lots of humans but I was the only dog.  The humans smelled very interesting and I know they must have a dog too.  They must have left their dog at home because even though I could smell them, I couldn't see them.

But this was good because I got lots and lots of pets from these other humans.

Kathleen always gives me treats!

Kathleen appeared ~ I have met her twice before when she came to my home to visit me.  She is really nice and smells of lots of dogs.  I might get to meet them sometime because one of the times she was at our home she said to my human that she should take me for a beach walk with her pack.  Even though I don't like waves and beaches have waves, I would love to go and play with lots of other dogs and especially if Kathleen will be there too!  You can read about my first two beach visits HERE and HERE).

Everyone sat down and Catherine pulled me in to sit beside her while Kathleen spoke to the humans.  I lost interest and lay down until I heard my name which made me perk up.  Kathleen said that although this class was without dogs and puppies, I had come along because I am a big soft lump.  I don't know what a big soft lump is but everyone laughed so I must take it that it is good to be a big soft lump.

Me learning to "stay"

After a LOT of talking ~ humans never stop talking, Kathleen asked Catherine if she had taught me to "stay".  She hasn't because I don't know what that word means.  Catherine told her "no" so Kathleen took my lead to show the others how easy it is to train "stay".  

She had my lead and stood in front of me.  She didn't say anything but just held up her hand.  I decided to site still to see what was going to happen.  She took a step away from me then she walked back to me and gave me a treat.  Then she did the whole thing again, this time taking two steps away from me and I stayed in the same place because I knew I would get a treat!

Look!  I "stayed" even when Kathleen went far away!

The next thing she did was drop my lead and step away from me with her hand up.  I am pretty smart so I knew this meant I had to stay where I was.  I think Catherine and the rest of the class were very impressed with me ~ especially when Kathleen took lots of steps away from me and I stayed where I was.

Afterwards Kathleen gave all the humans some of my treats ~ were they going to eat MY treats?!

No, thankfully.  It was for me!  After my first training session with Kathleen and my doing so well and all that, Kathleen told Catherine to let go my lead and let me wander around the others and as I went to each human they gave me a treat and a pet. 

I really like this formal training (that is what Catherine calls it).  Later, Sean came in to collect us and take us home and Catherine asked Kathleen to show him what I had learned ~ he was very impressed too!

In the car on the way home Catherine told Sean that next week everyone was bringing their dogs or pups so I can't wait until then to meet them all.  And she also told Sean that Kathleen really is amazing with dogs.  I agree!

CATHERINE:

Of course I knew Kathleen was great at training dogs but I have never been to one of her classes before.  With earlier dogs work and other things got in the way of devoting time to attending classes and I did all the training myself.  Now though, I have a little more spare time so I decided to give it a whirl with Oscar.

The first class is where Kathleen speaks to all the dog owners and we introduce ourselves to each other, telling them what breed we have, his or her name, and what we hope to achieve from the class.  It is a brilliant idea to have the first class (almost) dog free as I would imagine were all the dogs there, we would have been too distracted to take in all that Kathleen was saying.

Kathleen has met Oscar a couple of times so she knows what he is like and she asked me to bring him along so that she could use him to demonstrate on.  He is so docile and calm that it makes him ideal to work on for a quick demonstration.

After chatting for a while with the other owners and Kathleen, she took Oscar's lead and lead him into the middle of the floor for a demonstration to show how she teaches "stay" (she first checked whether I had taught him stay yet but I haven't so that was perfect).  She took Oscar on his lead to the middle of the room and I was almost certain she would have little success straight off.  Yes, Oscar is a smart cookie but given there were so many strangers there and so many distractions, I never in a million years thought he would manage it so quickly.

Kathleen is really amazing.  She took Oscars lead, took a step back holding up her hand in a "stop" sign way.  He stayed!  As he did after she took two steps away.  I was massively impressed but then she said she would do it having dropped the lead.  I was sure Oscar would dash off to investigate something.  He didn't!  No matter how far away she stepped from him, he remained where she told him to.  Now that is some ability in a trainer I think.

Kathleen's website

MY FIRST VISIT TO A BEACH

Now my shots are finished (I think this refers to my injections, which don't really hurt I am glad to report), I have been out and about a lot and learning lots too.  I had my first visit to a beach and it did look very interesting to me.

Hmm ... this looks interesting!

I now know that a big playground with lots and lots of sand is called a beach and it is great fun to be on, even though I am on a lead and so can't run away and REALLY explore!  There are tons of great smells on the beach but you have to be careful and not sniff up the sand because it makes you sneeze.

Meeting another dog!

And before we got on to the beach I met another dog!  It was strange looking because it was white and had long hair so very different to me.  And another thing, even though it was much older than me, it was much smaller!  And she didn't have a lead on like me.  Maybe humans get rid of leads once you are older?  I really hope so!

My first beach was Rathmullan beach and it felt funny on my paws walking on all this sand that moves around under your feet.  But after the loose sand there is harder sand which is much easier to walk on.

I heard Catherine saying to Sean (Catherine and Sean are my pet humans by the way) that the tide was very high.  I looked up but couldn't see anything up high so I have no idea what a tide is.  Unless it is invisible?

Investigating the water

But I do know what waves are!  And they are very, very scary.  After the sand there is water but it isn't like the water in my bowl because it tastes very strange to me.

When I was trying out this water it and finding I didn't like the taste of it, all of a sudden burst up in my face!  Catherine and Sean found that funny but I didn't and I ran as fast as I could to get away from this strange water.

Escaping the waves!

"It's only waves" said Catherine as if waves were okay things.  Humans are really odd you know.  It's okay for them with their faces so far from the waves to say they are okay but try being down low like me and a big wave coming at you full force!

For the rest of my walk I kept on the other side of Catherine and Sean and as far away as I could from the horrible waves!

Birds are very noisy!

Once safely far enough away from the waves (and on the other side of Sean and Catherine just in case a wave came and got me!) I saw something I really wanted to investigate, birds!

They were black and flew right above me and landed on the beach making lots of noise!  Catherine said "oh, look Oscar wants to chase birds!" and they both laughed.  Humans seem to find a lot of things funny.  I just find them funny most of the time because they have some very strange ideas.

Chasing birds

I took off after them but couldn't get to them because of the lead!  Why can't my humans just take off my lead and let me do what I want?!  I could easily have caught those birds to play with.  Well, except they fly and I don't think I can fly.

After all that excitement it was back to the car and my cage where I took a very well earned snooze.  I think I like beaches but I hope the next one we go to won't have waves.

HOW WILL LUCY TAKE TO OSCAR?

Our inherited cat, Lucy, inherited when our son, wife and baby moved to the USA, is a real firecracker of a cat.  She is extremely strong willed, smart, sassy and super intelligent.  Since our own wee cat Mimime died of blood cancer recently Lucy has had total centre stage in our home.  She can open doors, and in some strange way, can almost make us do whatever she wishes.

Lucy

I have a strong feeling her nose will be firmly pushed out of place when Oscar comes home on Sunday evening.

Obviously they will have to be kept apart until they settle down and Lucy accepts him.  I will crate Oscar and let Lucy into the room and keep it like that until there the animosity dies down.  This will have to be done to protect Oscar more than Lucy as one swipe of her very sharp claws would hurt Oscar and possibly set them up for a future of fighting where later, when Oscar is bigger, Lucy could be the one to suffer.

With previous cats and dogs I have found the crate method best.  It allows them to suss each other out safely and eventually settle into a harmonious life together.  Hopefully it will be the same with Lucy and Oscar.