Dog Days on First Street

It is quite picturesque walking along First Street, between Eighth Avenue and Prospect Park West, it’s a typical block in Park Slope. But a closer look reveals that the street is littered with dog droppings and residents have had enough.

According to neighbors, for the past month an outlaw has been lurking on this street. The man or woman lets their dog relieve itself in two recently renovated trees pits, near the corner of Eighth Avenue, and leaves the hot mess for the residents to clean up.

The residents of the 8-unit co-op building, who put in the tree pits, say they find dog waste in the pits everyday. The problem has become so consistent during the past month that neighbors have had enough.

“My husband and neighbors said that they will kill the guy when they find him,” said Virginia, a woman who has been living next to the co-op building for six years. “But we all work early in the morning until late at night. What are you going to do, put snipers on the roof? That would be nice.”

A walk up and down First Street revealed that there were over ten "orphan” dog droppings, a term that refers to dog waste that no one has picked up.

The canine droppings have become such a nuisance that a resident of a First Street co-op building, on the corner of Eighth Avenue, took time to type out a rather polite sign and attached it to the tree in the well-manicured pit along with a bag of dog feces. 

The sign reads:

Dear dog owner:

Almost everyday now, we find a little pile like this in our tree pits. It always seems to have come from the same dog.

Is that dog your dog? If so, we’d like to remind you that it’s not OK for you to let your dog go in these tree pits, nor is it OK for you to leave your dog’s waste in them.

Not only is it against the law; your dog’s waste doesn’t disappear by magic. We clean it up.

Please take responsibility for your dog. It doesn’t know any better. You ought to.

--Your Neighbors

The co-op residents have been keeping a close eye on the pits for good reason. In the spring of 2011, they decided to beautify the pits. They dug out the rubble under the dirt, replaced it with fertile soil, planted flowers, surrounded the pit with Belgian stone blocks and surrounded both of the pits with a wrought-iron fence to help stop dogs using the tree pit as “their own personal bathroom,” said a resident who wanted to remain anonymous.

She also said that the co-op did all the work themselves, which took “hours and hours,” and the fences alone cost $1,400.

“Dog poop is bad for the trees and soil, it is not fertilizer. Dog urine is especially bad, for it has a high acid content, which kills plants and trees,” said the anonymous resident who has lived in Park Slope for 21 years. “It is disrespectful to us and it is against the law. Also, it is disgusting for the gardeners, who dig in the dirt with their hands. ”

She would not reveal the name of the person who wrote the sign, but she did say it was a resident of her building: “There seems to be one or two culprits and our neighbor is fed up with picking up other people’s dog poop.”

A neighbor, Virginia, who did not want to give her last name for fear of angry dog owners, believes the orphan droppings is a sign of a bigger trend that she disagrees with:

“There is a crazy humanization of dogs in this neighborhood. People treat them with entitlement and get offended when you say they are not controlling their animal properly,” Virginia said. “Dog owners think it’s not big deal for them to go to the bathroom on some own else’s tree, sidewalk or property. This has made me extremely anti-dog.”

“It is incredibly disrespectful, for I am responsible for my stoop. I wouldn’t come to your house and take a dump on your stoop,” she said, explaining that the problem is so disturbing that she believes Councilmember Brad Lander should “get on top of this." 

The Canine Waste Law (Section 1310 of the New York State Public Health Code), went into effect August 1978. It clearly states:

“Each person who owns, or controls a dog must remove any feces left by that dog on any sidewalk, gutter, street, or other public area and dispose of it in a legal manner.”

The dog owner may remove the feces and “carry them away with him/her for disposal in a toilet or place them in a non-leaking container or bag and deposit them in a DSNY litter basket.”

Although it is a New York State Public Health Law, the Department of Sanitation is the primary enforcer of this law. They must catch someone in the act and the fine is $250.

Lauren Gable, who was sitting on the stoop of her First Street brownstone with her dog Roscoe, a Belgian Shepard, thinks there is only a small problem on her block. 

“I do think the majority of people pick up after their dogs,” Gable said. “But there are a few culprits who ruin the dog owners’ reputation for all of us.”

Let us know what you think about dog waste on your property in the comments!