Because many people don’t pick up after their dogs, dog poop can be a problem. I realize it can be a bigger problem in large cities like New York City, but it’s a pretty sad comment on our society when a city has to hire plain clothes poop scooper cops. From the New York Times…
It was just after dawn when Theo Otibu began prowling Ditmas Park in Brooklyn in his unmarked Sanitation Department car. He scanned the sidewalk for an elusive prey, one known only by the droppings of its best friend: the dog owner who does not scoop.
He spotted a woman in a long black coat leading a small white dog. Mr. Otibu, who has been a police officer in Ghana and a United Nations monitor in Bosnia, brought the car to a stop alongside a minivan and watched her in stony silence through his side mirror.
He could see all the telltale signs of negligent intent: the irritated expression, the hurried pace, the absence of a plastic bag in the pocket. “People who pick up have time,” he said earlier. “You can look at some people right away and say, ‘This person is not going to pick up after their dog.’ ”
The anxious woman and her dog made their way down the street, and Mr. Otibu rolled slowly with them. But after five long minutes of hushed stakeout, the dog did not go.
“It’s a lost,” he said, pulling away.
Dressed in plain clothes and driving white hybrid Toyotas, Mr. Otibu and the 14 other agents in the Sanitation Department’s Canine Task Force fan out across the five boroughs each day to enforce the city’s “pooper scooper” law, which went into effect 30 years ago and became the model for other large cities.
[...]
To issue a summons, the agent must witness the dog doing its business and the owner walking away. With about a half-million dogs spread across the city’s 305 square miles and an offense that can take less than 30 seconds, the odds are against the agents. Most agents find only one or two so-called K-9 violations in progress each day. (The task force also issues $200 fines for dogs that are off-leash, and for throwing household trash in city garbage cans.)
Here’s the rest.
What a crappy job!
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Could you just imagine… So what do you do? I’m a pooper scooper cop!
I’d like to hire those guys to scope out my neighborhood… I actually had to shovel poop off sidewalks during the spring thaw.. there was SO much I couldn’t walk my dogs.