Pushed Over the Edge

“Dear PoP,

I agree with the intent of this neighborhood activist. I had a passing thought that it would be nice to clean up this particular block while walking my dogs the other day. This person at least acted on their thought by going to trouble of cleaning it up and I appreciate that. I think your blog is a nice place to “re-purpose” this public service announcement and toss out the idea that maybe neighborhood dog owners could do some kind of “poop removal” days on a regular basis.

I would much rather do whatever it takes to minimize the animosity between neighborhood dog owners vs. non-dog owners. It already sucks. Dogs poop and dogs bark. I pick up my poop. I will start cleaning up the poop in that area from now on. I try to keep my dogs from barking but they do and I am glad they do. Some of my neighbors are glad they do and some of my neighbors hate it.

As a single woman who lives alone, I have a big scary dog for a reason. I get that some people don’t like dogs and I don’t like stepping in poop either. I try not to even read all the flaming that goes on about dogs because it is typically repetitive and depressing. But, at least for now, DC residents are allowed to own dogs and it would be better to just figure out how to quit all of the hating because it makes living here suck.”

I think in life there are always going to be some jerks. Some are irresponsible dog owners, some litter, some harass people and some do a lot worse. I hope we can give the benefit of the doubt to our neighbors and only judge the guilty and deal with those instances in less passive aggressive ways. I do however feel the frustration on both sides of this situation. Any suggestions on how to bridge the gap here?