[NatureNS] Dogs on walks

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Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:28:21 -0300
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Much as I'd love to think that my dog is doing the wilderness a favor by
defecating there, sadly this does not appear to be the case. Here's why:

1. Because my dog lives in close association with me, her feces may and very
likely do contain contaminants not routinely present in the feces of
resident wildlife. These include antibiotics and other medications,
potentially harmful strains of E. coli, and other disease-causing organisms
that are present in the human environment but not necessarily in the wild.

2. Although it's true that an ecosystem can absorb and even benefit from
animal waste, this ability is limited. The quantity of wildlife an ecosystem
can support is also limited, so one can hope that a functioning ecosystem
will be able to process and the waste products produced by the wildlife it
supports. This becomes increasingly less likely once we start to add the
waste from our companion animals, whose population is determined by us
rather than by the carrying capacity of the local ecosystem.

3. Waste products don't necessarily stay where they were deposited. On the
contrary, in environments where there has been a lot of human activity,
materials deposited on the soil surface often are washed way by the first
rain, ending up in local waterways. This means that even if your dog is
defecating in an ecosystem so degraded that it needs the nutrients, there is
no guarantee that those nutrients, along with anything else in the dog's
feces, won't end up where they're not needed -- namely, in the nearest
stream, pond, lake, or shoreline area. In recent years, many outbreaks of E.
coli or excessive nitrogen in waterways have been blamed partly or entirely
on dog waste.

4. Although I do everything I can to keep my dog healthy, it's still
possible that her feces might contain parasites or diseases that could be
transmitted to other people's dogs or even, in some cases, to humans and
other animals. Even aside from the potential effects on wildlife and the
environment, as a responsible pet owner I should not take unnecessary
chances with the health of other people's dogs, their children, or their
horses. Nor do I want other dog owners leaving their dogs' feces where my
dog, child, or horse might come into contact with them.

For purposes of the straw poll, you can put me down as being in favor of
allowing dogs on trails as long as they are accompanied by a responsible
owner. To me this means an owner who cleans up after the dog and is able to
keep the dog on the trail and prevent the dog from bothering either wildlife
or humans who would prefer not to interact with a dog. Such an owner would
use a leash if in the slightest doubt about whether the dog will obey
commands.

SC

On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 8:22 AM, Randy Lauff <randy.lauff@gmail.com> wrote:
> The problem with dog faeces and dogs off the leash is a matter of
quantity.
> Faeces: who wants to walk a trail lined with it...an exaggeration, I know,
> but on a well used trail one could almost connect the dots.
> Off the leash: how many times have you seen owners incessantly calling
their
> dogs, "Here boy...come here!" and the dog never comes. Who's to
> differentiate between a well-trained dog and one that the owner just
claims
> is well-trained? Not to mention that some owners think it hilarious or
> exciting when Rover chases a rabbit (hare) or chipmunk, etc.
> Randy
> _________________________________
> RF Lauff
> Way in the boonies of
> Antigonish County, NS.
>
>
> On 18 April 2011 22:01, Frederick W. Schueler <bckcdb@istar.ca> wrote:
>>
>> On 4/18/2011 8:46 PM, David & Alison Webster wrote:
>>
>>>  I would not have dreamed of carrying dog
>>> droppings out of these woods. And I can not imagine why one would do so
>>> now.
>>>
>>> It is a good fertilizer and a good food resource for creatures so
>>> adapted. To carry a biological resource out of woodland and then dump it
>>> into a 'land-fill' is, in my view, a triple abomination.
>>>
>>> It robs woodland of a useful resource, burdens an expensive and
>>> unsustainable 'waste' disposal system and creates problems for future
>>> generations by filling 'leak-proof' landfills with decomposable organic
>>> materials below the zone of aerobic biological activity where they can
>>> not decompose and become part of .the nutrient cycle.
>>>
>>> Life depends upon closed nutrient cycles. Western so-called civilization
>>> seems determined to generate one-way flow of nutrients; soil to landfill
>>> or soil to sea.
>>
>> * it's nice to hear this said. Dog feces are one of the few ways in
which,
>> in common practice, nutrients can be imported into natural habitats, and
our
>> forests have generally been depleted of nutrients by logging -
>> http://pinicola.ca/limnutr.htm
>>
>> fred schueler
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>         Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
>> Bishops Mills Natural History Centre - http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm
>> now in the field on the Thirty Years Later Expedition -
>> http://fragileinheritance.org/projects/thirty/thirtyintro.htm
>> Daily Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/
>>    RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
>>  on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
>>   (613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>
>

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Much as I&#39;d love to think that my dog is doing the wilderness a favor b=
y defecating there, sadly this does not appear to be the case. Here&#39;s w=
hy:<br><br>1. Because my dog lives in close association with me, her feces =
may and very likely do contain contaminants not routinely present in the fe=
ces of resident wildlife. These include antibiotics and other medications, =
potentially harmful strains of E. coli, and other disease-causing organisms=
 that are present in the human environment but not necessarily in the wild.=
<br>
<br>2. Although it&#39;s true that an ecosystem can absorb and even benefit=
 from animal waste, this ability is limited. The quantity of wildlife an ec=
osystem can support is also limited, so one can hope that a functioning eco=
system will be able to process and the waste products produced by the wildl=
ife it supports. This becomes increasingly less likely once we start to add=
 the waste from our companion animals, whose population is determined