Merde Happens.

PARISIAN DOGS SOIL CITY'S REPUTATION, WHILE OWNERS PROFESS HELPLESSNESS

PARIS 

Sophie and her golden lab, Mellis, made the mistake of strolling down a quiet pedestrian alley just as an anti-dog-poop demonstration was at its height. The demonstrators drew chalk circles around the piles, sang anti-doggie ditties, and repelled dog owners by offering them chocolate versions of what their pets had planned to leave.

Sophie and Mellis were quickly mobbed. "Not everyone in Paris is dirty," Sophie pleaded. "It's difficult for Mellis to go between two cars. We need some place especially for dogs."

How about, she was asked, just picking it up, as the citizens of other cities do? "Oh, well--maybe if the city provided plastic bags," she said, unenthusiastically. "And perhaps the city could teach us the correct way to use them."

As always in Paris, it is the government's fault.

SERIOUSLY DISGUSTING

Dog waste, says one local newspaper, "sticks to Paris's reputation the way fog does to London's." Tourists are revolted at what they find underfoot after gazing overhead. An average of 650 people a year break bones or are hospitalized after slipping on it.

Now, as it has done periodically, the city is again trying to do something about the problem. It has begun a poster and movie campaign, hoping to awaken the average Parisian's sense of guilt. One poster shows a person in a wheelchair who has just run through a pile and is about to put her hand in the mess on her wheel. Another ad shows a boy playing in the grass with filth-covered toys. "You're right not to pick it up," the campaign motto says. "They do it very well for you."

The city estimates that its 200,000 dogs deposit 16 tons of waste a day, of which the city cleans up 12 tons, at a cost that works out to about a dollar a pound. The law only requires dog owners to urge their dogs into the gutter, not to pick up after them. Parisians also routinely ignore the leash law, allowing them to use the old "My-goodness-whose-bad-dog-is-doing-that-way-over-there?" excuse.

In Paris, there are more old people living with dogs per capita than in any other big city, says Patrick Tremege, adjunct mayor for environmental matters. And they vote, which is why the law is so lax. Next year, he plans to ask Parliament to give his park workers the power to arrest. But until then, Parisians will have to watch their step.