Matt Heath: Fellow dog owners, please pick it up

Even the most angelic dog will poop randomly. Photo / 123RF

My dog Colin is a great New Zealander but like the rest of his species he produces disgusting crimes out his backside on a regular basis. He loves to do them on our daily walks. Something about the fresh air really gets his downstairs processes going.

He's so cute. He likes to turn three full circles on a freshly mown burm, arch his little back, lift his tail and squeeze one out.

However, unlike many dog owners I pick up Colin's leavings and dispose of them. I follow him around with a bunch of blue bags in a red bone shaped plastic container attached to his leash.

Sure, an alien observer would assume I was Colin's slave and Colin my master. But I am happy to follow, dutifully bagging his filth and then placing the bags into the neck of green plastic dogs because while it's foul and humiliating it's my duty as a proud Aucklander.

What kind of evil selfish dog owner wouldn't pick up their dog's messes? What kind of monster is happy to wander around letting their pet defecate all over the show and not clean it up? If it's your animal it's your waste. Just like you did it yourself. So pick up the turds and put the turds in the rubbish.

Dog turds are of course the second most disgusting leaving in the animal kingdom just behind the domestic cat's and just ahead of us humans. Their all-meat diet is to blame. If dogs were producing rabbit droppings then there wouldn't be a problem.

Sadly everything that comes out of that end of a dog is a horrible crime. An atrocity. Your atrocity because it's your dog - so clean it up.

This week I saw a husky let rip with a massive offering on a Landscape Rd driveway. It was huge, it was offensive and the owner did nothing about it. She just pretended like she hadn't seen her dog do it. Looked around like a shoplifter grabbing a block of cheese. Accept she was leaving a block of something far worse than cheese and legging it.

Later that afternoon, returning from my walk with the handsome Colin, we saw a depressing sight. A child's footprints leading away from the Husky leaving. Six disgusting steps heading towards the house. Poor kid probably trampled it inside onto his family's white shagpile carpet.

Come on Kiwis pick up what your dog is leaving. Better still, pick up two. I do.

There is a new initiative at my favourite dog park Big King. It's a leave one, take two proposition. So not only are you cleaning up what your dog does, you are helping the overall cause. Because sometimes in a free-range dog park you don't see where your animal went.

I've been picking up three or four crimes a day and much bigger ones than Colin could ever hope to produce. Some bigger than his head.

Yesterday as I sat atop Big King with my great New Zealander of a dog, Colin looking out over Mt Eden towards Rangitoto, three thoughts ran through my head.

(A) What a beautiful city Auckland is.

(B) How lucky are we to live here.

(C) Picking up extra dog turds makes me a very, very good person.

Obi Wan Kenobi said "Who's the more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows him?"

What about who is the more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows him with bags picking up his faeces?

I say we baggers of dog turds are not fools or followers. We may be humiliated, we may be treating our dogs like Egyptian Pharaohs but we are good people. Community-spirited people. We put the needs of the many above the needs of the few. We are the best of us.

Society should rub our heads and say "good boy". Society should follow us around with bags and pick up our leavings. We should be able to go wherever we like. How good would that be?