Related: The Boston Globe Stepped in Dogshit
I thought I smelled something.
"DNA tests are proven weapons in war over dog droppings | March 15, 2014
From sprawling suburbs to densely packed urban neighborhoods, large numbers of residents tend to agree on two things: They love dogs and hate dog droppings. In cities, dog owners have largely adjusted to the idea that, while living closely with neighbors, they must carefully dispose of all droppings. If they don’t, neighbors are often there to shame them. In the suburbs, that’s not always the case: Some dog owners resist the idea of cleaning up after animals in wider open spaces, and neighbors only find out the hard way when scooper laws are being ignored, long after the offending animal and its owner have moved on.
Now, Ipswich’s animal control officer thinks he has the solution: Force dog owners, when registering their pets, to agree to have their dog’s DNA sampled, so that it can be identified as the culprit in violations of the town’s pooper-scooper law. The proposal raises some predictable age-of-Snowden concerns about canine civil liberties, but the experience of some Massachusetts condominium developments and other places that have tried it suggests it works. Ipswich and other suburban towns should consider it seriously.
“This is a beautiful town, and it should be a clean town,” declares Matt Antczak, Ipswich’s animal control officer. His plan would cost $80,000 to register the town’s 2,000 dogs, or a one-time cost of about $40 a dog. Violators would pay a $200 fine per offense, which could offset much of the cost. According to a recent Globe story, some residents consider Antczak a hero and others a vigilante. But anecdotal evidence suggests that the mere threat of DNA forensics instantly cleans up the behavior of pet owners.
In the Devon Wood condominiums in Braintree, pet owner Kerry Weidner told the Associated Press, “the grass is now ours again.” In Watertown’s Repton Place, condo manager Matthew Harris told the Globe that people constantly stepped in “disgusting” levels of poop. After introducing DNA testing, he said, “Now, there’s no pet waste at all.” In a Chicago Tribune story, a suburban Chicago development reported just one unattended dropping in the first six months of its dog DNA program.
If Antczak gets his way and gets the same results, Ipswich may end up as a model for solving one of the most annoying problems afoot in the region.
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