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No pooping/no peeing signs

I’m just …. Not really sure how to comply with this request.
I spend a lot of time walking my dogs. I always take them out in my own yard before starting out. The act of walking tends to make them go #2 - sometimes 2 or 3 times in a walk. I carry bags so I can pick this up.
What else can I do? I’ve taught them to use grass and direct them to the curb grass, but they all tend to use the restroom on walks.

It’s just part of exercise. Everything gets… in motion.

Oh, wait! You mean the owners of the grass have “no pooping / no peeing” signs? (I thought you meant that you wanted to teach the dogs not to poop on a walk)

I think picking it up is the best you could probably hope for. Maybe look at the dogs’ diets - not saying you feed tinned food, but dogs that are tend to poop big sloppy ones. We call it the Pedigree Poop.

If diet is a factor, maybe talk to a nutritionist?

Mine is 27kg of muscle, fed 2/3 raw w/ 1/3 kibble. He does a poop most every time you play ball with him (twice a day), or if you take him for a novel walk (beach, to a cafe etc.). Guaranteed that brings on a nice steaming… turd. But only one per game/walk, and it’s usually very compact for his size.

My last dog had bowel issues resulting in bowel cancer later on. He couldn’t poo standing, had to walk it out. So dog poop is something that gets a bit of attention, unfortunately.

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My dogs aren’t allowed to poop on walks, or go in people’s yards. You potty them before you leave & keep things moving at a brisk clip walking. No sniffing, no shopping. All business, we’re here to walk, and we keep to the sidewalk.

Since your dogs are used to going on a walk, maybe start out and circle back to your own yard or poop friendly area before the “main” walk.

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Thanks. Yes, I saw some signs posted about it. I have my dogs on leash and do carry bags, but the exercise definitely gets them to “go.” I don’t let them stop or hang out or engage in extended sniffing, but the walking process definitely makes them go.
For the most part, save the occasional episode, things look pretty normal to me. I guess it’s just stressful because I’ve always thought that by carrying bags and picking up, I was being a good neighbor.

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That’s interesting. The walking definitely seems to cause them to go. They walk pretty well and they’re not sniffing like crazy or anything, but they all do a sudden, “Wait - I’ve got to go” move. I’ve trained them primarily to go in grass, in the curb between the sidewalk and street.

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You are being a good neighbour by picking up behind your dogs. The problem is that you can’t pick up urine and it burns the grass. Nobody wants to spend time or money on their lawn to make it look good, only to have yellow crop circles all over it.

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Oh I understand. I definitely don’t let them do that in the actual lawn. I’ve always thought that the area between the sidewalk and curb was where dogs were supposed to urinate. I absolutely cannot pick up the urine. It just seems literally impossible to walk dogs on sidewalks if they are not able to urinate for the entire walk.

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It’s definitely a conundrum.

The area between the sidewalk and the curb is owned by the city/town, but each home owner is responsible for its maintenance.

I always put my dog outside in the back yard for a 1/2 hour to do his business before going for a walk. If he started to lift his leg out on the walk I would stop him.

Carry a water bottle and give it a spray afterwards. Our dogs have never caused grass burn where they pee; maybe it is a diet / climate / hydration thing?

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Um…it is. And it’s usually not “owned” by the property owners either. It’s usually owned by the city/municipality.

I get it, but people need to be realistic. When I lived in a downtown city brownstone there were people who “gardened” around the tree in front of their home, and I would try not to let the dogs pee on those especially…but…there literally is no other “yard” for the dog to go in. So, they have to pee/poop on the sidewalk area.

Pickup bags are all you can do. Others might need to consider moving to a suburb.

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Where do you do this?

Obviously if you have a back yard, maybe that’s how it works. My main dog walking experience was when I lived in a city and there was no backyard (or front yard).

When I lived in a more spacious area of the city no one every complained about the space between the sidewalk and the street, but yards were larger and I don’t remember anyone going out of their way to beautify the curb other than just mow it.

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My dog never caused grass burn in our back yard either, I’m not sure what causes it but probably a combination of what you said. Other dogs that peed on my front lawn caused grass burn though, so I just automatically stopped my dog from going on other people’s lawns. I’ve seen some beautiful lawns destroyed with burn spots from dogs being walked.

There are a large number of dogs in my neighbourhood and I’ve seen their owners letting them pee and poo wherever they want to. By the end of the week the garbage at the public park is almost overflowing with poop bags and it really stinks in the summer. I guess the neighbourhood should be thankful that people pick their mess up, but I wish people would bring their poo bags home with them and put them in a covered garbage pail.

Then there’s the dogs that scratch the ground with their hind paws after they’ve done their business and the owners do nothing to stop them from digging up a person’s lawn. One neighbour has a beautiful lilac bush in the middle of their lawn(not near the sidewalk) and several dog walkers let their dogs go up and mark their territory on it. Luckily my house is on the side of the street that has no sidewalk.

Ha, we spent $7500 fencing a rather large back yard when we got our dog. She barely uses the yard - she will only go in one corner to pee, and does not like to poop in the yard at all. Instead, she has trained us to take her on a stroll through the neighborhood 3x a day, and that is when she does her pooping. We carry bags and always clean up her mess even when she goes in a wooded area, but she usually prefers to poop on the nicest lawns on the street. Luckily, there are a lot of other dog owners in our neighborhood and most of the neighbors don’t mind their yards being used as a doggy toilet, as long as the owners clean up.

All the dogs like to sniff and find out who else has been in the 'hood - and leave their own twitter message. :grin:

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@DownYonder
If you haven’t already, watch the trailer for “Paws of Fury”. Your last sentence will really resonate. Especially the bit about Twitter!

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Suburbia. Back yards, sidewalks. No green space between the sidewalk and the street.

I dislike having to stop on walks. Or carry around bags of poop. Sometimes it’s inevitable, but it’s not terribly difficult to teach a dog that walks are for moving and to keep to the sidewalk if you have another place/time to potty them.

Just keep carrying your poop bags and try not to let them pee directly on a “landscaped” area. I think the expectation that people NOT let their dogs go to the bathroom on a walk is unrealistic. Not everyone has a backyard to let their dog pre-poo in.

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With respect, that is not the fault of homeowners that spend hundreds of dollars on their lawns and landscaping. I believe most people don’t mind if dogs poop on their lawn as long as it’s cleaned up, however they do mind if there are yellow burn spots on their lawn.

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Never said it was.

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Time to move to the suburbs then. The far away suburbs.

If you live in an urban or developed area you have to appreciate that there will be other people walking in front of your house, many with kids and dogs.

I live on a rural road and can’t really see my neighbors, and even still some of them have dogs who pee on my lawn. I drew the line at horses on my lawn, not a yellow spot.

I would say that it would be appropriate not to let them pee on the next door neighbor’s tree 3x a day, for example. Not to expect any dog will ever pee on your lawn is unrealistic - esp if you have a sidewalk and we’re talking about the median between the sidewalk and the street.

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“Curb your dog,” no dog signs and fenced front green spaces are more common than not in NYC, probably the least suburban place in the US.

This isn’t an urban/suburban issue, IMO. It’s regional, based on probably a whole lot of factors. Presence of sidewalks, desire to have an award winning front lawn, and general “get off my lawn :rage:” sentiment varies so widely across the US.

Coming from a place of small lots, abundant sidewalks and public green space, this request isn’t even weird to me. I saw this 30 years ago and was raised from my very first childhood dog that dogs keep to sidewalks. Allowing them on lawns was rude. And that was 30 mins from the state capitol. In the city center, fenced front lawns were pretty standard, to keep dogs and foot traffic off the property entirely.

Where we are now in the east, with no sidewalks, and a whole lot fewer “showpiece” yards, along with the wild animal presence, sure–I bet there’s a lot less of it. In a similar vein, I was getting pretty irked at my dogs for pooping in the arena, until I realized it was the coyotes :joy:

But we all have our things that seem silly to others. Is it really that hard to keep the dog from pottying on this ONE property over the course of the walk?