Holistically Cleaning up after your Dog
December 17th, 2009
Poop.
It is a natural part of having a dog or an infant. For those of us with little dogs (or babies) the issue of poop is well.. small. But for those of us dog owners with huge dogs.. well.. the poop problem is proportional.
Lately, I have been giving a lot of thought as to what are we supposed to do with poop as good citizens and dog owners? I’m going to take a shot in the dark and guess that the majority of people opt for bagging and tossing the poop in the trash. But from the holistic view of dog ownership, that is not very environmentally friendly. It is in essence making a poop shrine to save for posterity. The great civilizations of the future will wonder why we decided to save all of our rubbish in giant heaps and why we buried women with silicon sacks on their chests.
Other possibilities:
Throwing it down the toilet, I hear, is not great for our sewage systems.
Leaving it to “disappear” in our yards is bad as it could leach poopy bacteria like E.coli into the water table.
Even burning dried out poops wouldn’t be carbon neutral. (And it’s stiinky!)
So what do we do?!
After a bit of research into the world of dog poop products, I have recently purchased a Doggy Dooley system to reduce the amount of Nala waste in the world. I swear she poops five big piles a day. Up till now, Nala poop and the other 2 dogs poops have gone into a huge trash can outside the house that really smells in the sun. The lid even needs to be left off since it starts to heat up during the day. This doggy dooley thingy is like a mini septic tank for dog poop. After processing, it is supposed to leach harmlessly into the ground. I’ll post updates as we see how it works.
My other dog poop plan is composting. The biggest problem with dog poop and composting is that, “I don’t want to put the dog poop on MY veggies”. Seriously though, it could present a problem with infectious agents making a nice home in the garden. And I’m not a composting wiz with enough skills to maintain a giant hot compost heap. Exothermic piles that heat up can be hot enough to kill bacteria but those also requires a respectable amount of work. I can’t be bothered with that so I found the Naturemill automatic composter on Amazon. It says it can handle dog poop which I am super excited about. I hope to purchase this one soon but it is on the expensive side so I’m holding out. Once I do purchase it, I’ll let you know about this one too. Mind you it is probably only suitable for small dogs.
My third idea was vermiculture. I’ve been working on my own small worm bin for a few months now and it is so cool. The worms eat all of my leftovers and all of my unwanted paper mail. I shred the newspaper, those stupid credit statements that you don’t want to throw up for fear of identity theft, old diary entries I’m to embarrassed to keep; I shred the leaflets left on my car by scientologist; I put my subway sandwich wrappers in there. I feel like I am reducing my paper waste and the act of shredding paper is so satisfying!
Any way, worms really, really, really love poop so making vemicompost out of dog poop is a great idea. It should be kept separate from your food compost and maybe away from the window. While there doesn’t seem to be much data or information about whether or not pathogens survive after worm digestion, I advise still treating it like its potentially dirty. Hand washing is highly advisable as is not using the dog poop compost for your food plants.
This is a problem I’ve been seriously thinking about for months now and maybe it’ll give others something to think about. As holistic dog owners, even poop is something we should consider when we are caring for our animals. What’s the point in feeding an awesome raw food diet and responsibly breeding dogs and caring for those who need homes when we don’t respect the communities we live in.
I’ve got to admit that I’m always concerned on how much my dog was affecting the planet’s raising temperatures caused by CO2 gas. And, last year I decided to do something about it; interestingly, I took your second approach and started composting my dog’s faeces. Like you, I was concerned about the biological implications of this, but I don’t grow any vegetables in my garden so I was happy to continue.
Using this guide from the United Stated Department for Agriculture (ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/AK/Publications/dogwastecomposting2.pdf), I was able to successfully produce my own compost from my garden leaves, vegetable clippings and indeed, my dog waste.
One of the great products I was able to find is called a ‘Dicky Bag’, which is a portable carrying device that allowed me to take my dog’s stools and add them to my collection back home.
Thanks for the great article!
Joanna.