Listen up, Gainesville dog owners: It’s time to cut the s**t.
The Polar Vortex ended months ago, and Florida is back to being a hot, festering swamp. That means when you let your dog out and don’t pick up its droppings, the waste sits in the sun and bakes, and the fumes burn off our eyelashes whenever we walk by. Seriously, it’s everywhere: A cursory newsroom survey revealed that everyone’s apartment complexes/houses/lives are littered with dried-up pieces of dog poo. Looking at you, College Manor residents.
We love dogs. And we get it: You’re in college, so you’re technically an adult and can, say, impulsively buy a puppy if you want. Or adopt a pit bull from a pet rescue. Or take home a stray cat.
But if you’re not cleaning up after your pet, you’re not responsible enough to own one.
In fact, if you’re not doing something as effortless as putting a plastic bag over your hand, picking up a turd and disposing of it, what other pet-owner responsibilities are you shirking?
Blame it on the college-town culture — and Alachua County Animal Services’ so-cute-it-hurts Facebook page advertising adoptable pets. The city launched a campaign in 2009 designed by the Alachua County Environmental Protection Department and funded by the Gainesville Clean Water Partnership. The Alachua County Scoop the Poop campaign was a response designed to “reduce the fecal coliform levels in Gainesville’s urban creeks.”
The campaign looks as if it really worked, but by now, what with student turnover, no one remembers the “Stink Foot” commercial that aired in Gainesville movie theaters before every show for the majority of July 2009. In addition, organizers hung posters around the city advertising the campaign and partnered with local veterinary practices to spread the message. A post-campaign survey proved the campaign was effective; respondents reported that their habits had changed.
However, the campaign’s report revealed that when the ACEPD reached out to local apartment complexes to take part in the campaign by sending packages with sample posters, brochures and information on ordering waste-disposal stations, only 10 of the 258 Gainesville apartment managers responded requesting “Scoop the Poop” promotional materials.
We realize that simply asking students to quit their s**tty behavior (pun 100 percent intended) is basically useless. College students break unwritten codes of common decency all the time: Girls don’t wipe the toilet seat after squatting, boys arrive in crowded lecture halls post-gym sans-shower and, hello, have you ever been inside Taco Bell after midnight on a Saturday? It’s brutal.
Instead, we’re calling on the city to revive the “Scoop the Poop” campaign, expand it into the Fall and Spring semesters and build strong relationships with apartment complex managers. With Preview season right around the corner, Gainesville should make city beautification a priority.
In the meantime, Gators, we reiterate: Scoop it. Bag it. Trash it.
[A version of this editorial ran on page 6 on 4/16/2014 under the headline "U-No-Poo: Pick up after your dogs, Gainesville"]
