First things first: I am not a dog hater.
I have nothing against people who get dogs.
And that's been a lot since the pandemic: families who want their children to learn to be responsible for someone, older people who want to do something about their loneliness.
Or professionals who go out three times a day in this way despite a lot of desk work.
So far all good.
Everyone is allowed their pet.
But if you get a dog, you also have to bear responsibility for how it behaves in the world.
A dog doesn't just do his rounds in the aquarium at home alone.
Lucy Schmidt
Editor in the "Life" department of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.
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Unfortunately, the field paths and sidewalks in our town (and certainly elsewhere) increasingly indicate that many do not take on this responsibility as one would wish.
Whether that's because there are more and more dogs in Germany - I don't know.
All I know is that, as a mother of two children, I have to constantly call out in the summer months: "Be careful, dog poop".
I don't think we need to discuss how gross, unsanitary and anti-social it is to have dog poo just lying around.
And because most people agree on this, for years there have been more and more dog lovers who return from their walk with a bag in their hand in which they have collected their four-legged friend's excrement, so that no one else is bothered by it.
Unfortunately, in addition to the large number of reasonable and friendly people, there are also some who can't behave themselves: dog owners who don't put a bag in their pockets before they leave the house.
My experiences meanwhile show: From the point of view of a mother, the legacies of the dogs can be divided into "outrageous dog poo" and "really outrageous dog poo".
For me, the cheeky ones include everyone who is on the side of the road, maybe in the field or on a green strip by the road.
So that you don't necessarily have to walk directly over it if you stay on the path.
Don't get me wrong, they bother me too, because small children like to take a shortcut off the path, sometimes stumble over their legs or suddenly pick a dandelion at the side of the path.
But these dog owners at least had the decency not to demonstrate very clearly: I don't give a damn about anyone else.
If you stay strictly on the path, you don't step directly in my dog's feces.
But this summer I've noticed more and more dog poo in the "really outrageous" category.
In our neighborhood, the parents and children of a kindergarten have decided: They will no longer put up with the dirt on their daily path.
And we made a big sign with the inscription "The crap path becomes a children's path".
And because even kindergarten children are obviously aware that a sign doesn't impress bold dog owners at all, they took the trouble to paint lots of large and small stones to line them up along the way.
To do this, they invited local children to do the same, designing more stones and placing them along the path.
Besides the purpose it was supposed to have, it looked really motley and happy.
But,
and that is the bitter realization a few weeks after the campaign: some dog owners are not even interested in this commitment.
Dog droppings can now be found on the painted stones.
At least I can't think of anything more about that.
Similar idea at another location near us.
Here terraced houses end at a dirt road.
Children ride bicycles, play chase or kick a ball. Apparently, it was enough for them to have to keep an eye on whether a dog was doing their business somewhere.
So they started - a few years ago - to paint signs.
"There's no dog toilet here," it said.
Every spring they renewed and enlarged the signs.
However, all painting was unsuccessful.
Over the years, one could almost get the impression that ignorant dog owners let themselves be spurred on by such signs to let their dog poop in peace right here - or is it simply the increasing number of dogs being led along here?
Anyway, summer after summer there was dog poo