DEAR REXY: WHAT OF DOG DOO-DO'S AND DON'TS?

Byline: Matt Cooper The Register-Guard

Talk about raising a stink!

Letters to The Register-Guard have been, well, piling up lately on a steamy issue: picking up your pooch's poop.

Writers are debating whether it's OK to bag a doggie deposit and leave it in a neighbor's trash can. (`How rude,' one wrote. "Feel free to put the bag in my garbage can," another countered.)

Or why someone would leave one of those packaged presents on the sidewalk. (`Is it believed to be better to step on poop in a plastic bag?' one pondered.)

Or why, if a dog unloads on a sidewalk, the pet owner ignores it and a 2-year-old girl comes along and takes an unfortunate tumble. (`It was a nasty mess and we were still a long way from home,' her dad wrote.)

The weather's getting nice again, we're all stepping out and many of us seem to have something to say about the do's and don'ts of doggie doo-doo.

Here's the bottom line:

For starters, it's illegal to leave it anywhere except on your own land, although the authorities certainly have better things to do with their time than chase down violators.

Still, get caught in Springfield and it's a $58 fine. In Eugene, it's $40 to $155 (even in the dog parks) and in unincorporated Lane County - hold on to your hound - it's as much as $237.

"It's hard for us to catch them," admitted Mike Wellington, program manager for Lane County Animal Regulation Authority. "But anybody can file a complaint if they're willing to testify in court."

Yes, but who wants to handle the evidence?

Environmental experts say dog droppings should be put in a trash can, flushed down a toilet or buried.

The waste can transmit diseases and parasites. And left on the grass, rain carries it into the storm sewers - and into the Willamette and McKenzie rivers, where it can contaminate the water we drink.

Pamela Wright, of the Eugene office of the state Department of Environmental Quality, called dog poop "one of the biggest problems in urban run-off pollution."

A study in Seattle found that canine waste accounted for nearly 20 percent of the bacteria in drinking-water samples. "If you think picking up dog poop is unpleasant," one cleanup campaign offered, "try drinking it."

Still, many pet owners do the right thing with dog doo, bagging it up. Which begs the other question - is it OK to slip a bagged dog bomb in your neighbor's trash can?

Not without permission, officials say. Technically, that's illegal dumping, although Eugene spokesperson Jan Bohman said "it's highly unlikely we would have the resources" to enforce that.

Doug Hoover has a better solution: Let 'em do it.

Hoover, 54, of Eugene, got a kick out of the dog-dirt debate on the newspaper's letters page. He wrote in earlier this week that his trash can is available not just to passing dog-walkers, but anybody with the errant piece of litter.

Hoover owns a Shih Tzu - careful, that's pronounced "SHEED-zoo" - named Snickers. He understands that his neighbors want their yards free of mutt mines, so he picks up after his dog - "that's just responsible dog ownership," Hoover said.

On the other hand, it's harder for Hoover to understand folks who object to having someone else's dog waste put in a can with their human waste. It's all trash, right?

Then he made a confession. He had, on a rare occasion - rare, mind you - left a Snickers doodle in a neighbor's can.

And how did he feel about it?

"I made sure no one saw me," Hoover said, laughing.

CAPTION(S):

Doug Hoover and his wife, Kathy, walk and pick up after Snickers in their River Road neighborhood. And, yes, their trash can is always open. Dog waste is "one of the biggest problems in urban run-off pollution." - PAMELA WRIGHT, DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY, EUGENE OFFICE