My new, essential, shiny and ultimately portable accessory to not leave home without is a little black bag or rather several little bags.
No, not from Lulu Guinness or ASOS comes this indispensable though ultimately disposable little number, but it is bought in bulk from Amazon or purchased locally from ye olde “Pette Shoppe” in Rye. If I am out with the pooch, then this unadorned plastic bag is the must have.
Having recently rescued the bouncy mutt, Jasper, from a centre in the Romney Marshes, the swift and casual scooping of poop efficiently and effectively into a tiny bag is taking practice.
In preparation for Jasper, I went shopping for doggy things – doggy basket, doggy lead, doggy treats, doggy food, doggy bone and some very smart silver poo bags from the aforementioned Pette Shoppe.
However, after a few days with the dog and, shocked at the speed I was getting through these bags, the postal bulk order of 500 biodegradable puce green ones was delivered.
I was surprised when these pulled out to be the size of a standard carrier bag – Jasper is a small mutt, I conclude these were designed for a pair of Great Danes with increasingly regular movements.
As a first time dog owner, how to pick up the poo deftly and wick it away into a doggy bin in the flashest of flashes, prompted a quick google. Enlightenment came from WikiHow:
“With your hand safely on the inside of the inverted bag, firmly grab the poop on the ground and pick it up”.
A very clear instruction, but “if you are picking up poop that is on concrete, try to pick it up as cleanly as possible (e.g. not scraping your hand along the concrete as you’re picking up the poop)”.
Oops, scrape I did and handful of weeds were deployed as an organic scouring pad to little effect. Avoid concrete, especially by a bus stop, if at all possible.
“With the bag right side out, use both hands to tie up the bag. Make sure to tie the bag tightly so that it does not open when you go to throw it away”.
Read on . . .
“If the poop is in the grass, make a claw-like circle with your fingers and then get as far under the pile as possible before lifting up the poop”. Bringing with it clumps of grass, twigs and many thorny things . . .
“Make sure that you have a firm grip on your dog’s leash if you are picking up his poop while you are walking him”!
And finally that . . .
“It may be helpful to hold your breath while you are tying up the bag”!
So it was that Jasper and I set off on a morning walk last week. It was quite a blustery day, as it sometimes is here in the harbour.
The usual wind is a south westerly, meaning that, as you round the tip of the harbour beach path and prepare to head south west, it is almost impossible to walk towards Winchelsea, unless bent double, head down, shoulders turned with elbows braced and eyes squeezed to slits against the wind.
At this very point pooch hunkered down for a poo. I stood by, I felt in my pocket, found a bag, put my hand in the bag, inverted the bag over my hand, made a firm grab for the poop, shaping my hand like a claw, as it was a long swishy, grassy spot Jasper had chosen.
Now, with the bag the right side out I began, with both hands, while keeping a firm grip on the lead, to tie the bag. It was not necessary to hold my breath as the wind was so strong.
But, at that moment, just as the two ends of the bag were meeting, the blowing tempest bellowed into the bag, re-inverting it, ripping it from my hands and releasing the poo skywards, where (several feet above me) I saw the little deposits torn into fragments and travel fleetingly over the electric fence only to plop down among some dozing cormorants . . . the bag itself, though biodegradable, ripped on out to sea . . . (yeeks) . . . catastrophe.
On a cable tied to the gate at the entrance to the nature reserve are a pair of plastic eyes carrying the warning “Watching you. Pick up the poo.”
There will be times, even with the best of intentions, that I will just have to leave it.