to the

Beach and so do the little bags of dog poo

ing along Kingston Road, my foot hit one of these bags and I made an unexpected face plant on the sidewalk, smashing an expensive pair of prescription sunglasses into my forehead, causing a gush of blood that was almost matched by the flow from my nose which I was sure I had broken in the fall.

Let me assure you, the sky which earlier had been a serene azure, was turned deepest, darkest navy by my curses of the wayward – but luckily for them – absent dog owners.

Just who are these people and why do they leave their pet’s waste, so neatly bagged, in the public walkways, on top of street furniture, at the ends of private driveways, or perched upon their neighbours’ garbage bins where the collecting trucks’ robot arms unwittingly knock them off onto the street?

Could it be that these doo-doo abandoners are simply afraid of exposure to the germs they imagine residing on those public trash cans they avoid using?

An odd concern, considering that just moments before, they had been manually scooping up their dog’s feces without the slightest shudder of squeamishness.

Or perhaps they are just plain, well, you know…unprepared for the realities of Life.

Perhaps, for most of their existence they could always depend on mom or dad to helicopter in to deal with any yucky situations that arose. Then COVID-19 struck and they were suddenly on their own. Of course, they ordered a pandemic puppy to keep them company through the lockdown.

Unfortunately, the critter came without an instruction manual, but the pooch has somehow been able to communicate when it needs to be taken for a walk to do its business.

Somehow, the new owners know they must scoop the poop into one of those cute little biodegradable bags that make them feel so environmentally righteous for using (“Oh boy, something more to shop online for!”), but then what?

Desperately, they stare at Fido hoping he will know what to do but get absolutely no guidance in return. A big slobbery lick across the face, but no meaningful direction. So, the novice owners make the only choice left to the truly helpless – they leave the bag on the sidewalk, and scarper away, hoping no one notices.

What on earth do they think happens to the bags of poo that they have abandoned on the sidewalk?

Do they believe that the biode- gradable bags compost into thin air overnight? Do they think that the city has a special crew who zoom along all the sidewalks in Toronto, perhaps on jet-propelled scooters, collecting the tiny sacks with Star Trek-inspired tractor beams?

And then there are those nature lovers who hang them from tree branches like smelly Christmas decorations – do they believe that in a mere 20 or 30 years the trees will have grown so high that the bags of doo-doo will have risen out of sight, like passengers on a very slow-moving elevator.

What should they be doing instead? They should be taking the poop home and placing it in their green bins or flushing the material (not the bags, of course) down the toilet.

Or, if they can’t afford being seen

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