![Homemade pooper-scooper](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Homemade_pooper-scooper.jpg)
A pooper-scooper, or poop scoop, is a device used to pick up animal feces from public places and yards, particularly those of dogs. Pooper-scooper devices often have a bag or bag attachment. 'Poop bags' are alternatives to pooper scoopers, and are simply a bag, usually turned inside out, to carry the feces to a proper disposal area. Sometimes, the person performing the cleanup is also known as the pooper-scooper.
History
The invention is credited to Brooke Miller, of
Anaheim
Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most p ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
. The design she
patented
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
is a metal bin with a rake-like edge attached to a wooden stick. It also includes a rake-like device to scoop the poop into the scooper and a hatch that can be attached to a garbage bag that fits onto the base. The generic term ''pooper-scooper'' has been included in
dictionaries
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, p ...
since the early 1970s.
Legislation
Around 1935, "
Curb Your Dog" signs started appearing in NYC, initiating discussions and correspondence with the
Department of Sanitation.
The Village of
Great Neck Estates was one of the earliest communities to enact a local ordinance, in 1975, requiring residents to remove pollution on private and public property caused by dogs.
Murray Seeman, Jay S. Goodman and Howard Zelikow, advocated in the face of heated opposition.
In 1978, New York State passed the Pooper-Scooper Law. It was so controversial that
Mayor Koch
Edward Irving Koch ( ; December 12, 1924February 1, 2013) was an American politician, lawyer, political commentator, film critic, and television personality. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and was mayo ...
needed the
New York State Legislature
The New York State Legislature consists of the two houses that act as the state legislature of the U.S. state of New York: The New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly. The Constitution of New York does not designate an official ...
to pass it, after being unable to convince the
New York City Council
The New York City Council is the lawmaking body of New York City. It has 51 members from 51 council districts throughout the five Borough (New York City), boroughs.
The council serves as a check against the Mayor of New York City, mayor in a may ...
.
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
called actress and
consumer advocate
Consumer protection is the practice of safeguarding buyers of goods and services, and the public, against unfair practices in the marketplace. Consumer protection measures are often established by law. Such laws are intended to prevent business ...
Fran Lee "New York's foremost fighter against dog dirt".
October 20, 1978,
KQED KQED may refer to:
* KQED (TV), a PBS member station in San Francisco
* KQED-FM
KQED-FM (88.5 MHz) is a NPR-member radio station in San Francisco, California. Its parent organization is KQED Inc., which also owns its television partners, both ...
San Francisco news footage featured scenes from a
Harvey Milk
Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk was born and raised in N ...
press conference in
Duboce Park
Duboce Park (\du-'BÅŒS\) is a small urban park located between the Duboce Triangle and Lower Haight neighborhoods of San Francisco, California. The park is less than one block wide from north to south and two blocks wide from west to east. Its we ...
in which he discussed the city's new "pooper scooper law" with a how-to demonstration.
Marking the 25th anniversary of the Pooper-scooper law, NYC Mayor Ed Koch was quoted saying, "If you’ve ever stepped in dog doo, you know how important it is to enforce the canine waste law. New Yorkers overwhelmingly do their duty and self-enforce. Those who don’t are not fit to call friend."
In 2018, the
City of San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
allocated budget funds in the amount of $830,977 to address this issue.
A number of jurisdictions, including
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, San Francisco and
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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have laws requiring pet owners to clean up after their pets:
a) A person who owns, possesses or controls a dog, cat or other animal shall not permit the animal to commit a nuisance on a sidewalk of any public place, on a floor, wall, stairway or roof of any public or private premises used in common by the public, or on a fence, wall or stairway of a building abutting on a public .
Authorized employees of New York City Departments of Health (including Animal Care & Control), of Sanitation, or of Parks and Recreation can issue tickets.
Such laws are often nicknamed "pooper-scooper laws", though the laws only stipulate that dog owners remove their dogs' feces, not the method or device used (thus using a hand-held plastic bag to remove feces complies with these laws).
Some apartment complexes, condos, and neighborhoods require residents to pick up dog poop and use DNA testing on poop to fine people who did not pick up after their pet.
Health concerns
![Borf face on pooper scooper sign](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Borf_face_on_pooper_scooper_sign.jpg)
Dog droppings are one of the leading sources of ''
E. coli
''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escher ...
'' (
fecal coliforms
A fecal coliform (British: faecal coliform) is a facultatively anaerobic, rod-shaped, gram-negative, non-sporulating bacterium. Coliform bacteria generally originate in the intestines of warm-blooded animals. Fecal coliforms are capable of growth ...
) bacterial pollution, ''
Toxocara canis
''Toxocara canis'' (also known as dog roundworm) is a worldwide-distributed helminth parasite of dogs and other canids. The name is derived from the Greek word "," meaning bow or quiver, and the Latin word "caro," meaning flesh.Bassert , J., & T ...
'' and ''
Neospora caninum
''Neospora caninum'' is a coccidian parasite that was identified as a species in 1988. Prior to this, it was misclassified as ''Toxoplasma gondii'' due to structural similarities. The genome sequence of ''Neospora caninum'' has been determined by ...
''
helminth
Parasitic worms, also known as helminths, are large macroparasites; adults can generally be seen with the naked eye. Many are intestinal worms that are soil-transmitted and infect the gastrointestinal tract. Other parasitic worms such as schi ...
parasite pollution. One gram of dog feces contains over 20,000,000 ''E. coli'' cells. While an individual animal's deposit of feces will not measurably affect the environment, the cumulative effect of thousands of dogs and cats in a metropolitan area can create serious problems due to contamination of soil and
water supplies
Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavors or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes. Public water supply systems are crucial to properly functioning societies. Thes ...
. The runoff from neglected pet waste contaminates water, creating health hazards for people, fish, ducks, etc.
In
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
an estimated of feces are deposited daily on public property. A citizen commission (2005) overwhelmingly recommended a plan that would break even at about seven months.
DNA samples would be required when pet licenses come up for renewal. Within a year, a database of some 12,500 registration-required canine residents would be available to sanitation workers with sample-test kits. Evidence would be submitted to a
forensics
Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and crimina ...
laboratory where technicians could readily match the waste to its dog. The prospect of a prompt fine equivalent to $600 US (at 2005 exchange rate) would help assure preventive compliance, as well as cover costs.
[
]
In adult dogs, the infection by ''
Toxocara canis
''Toxocara canis'' (also known as dog roundworm) is a worldwide-distributed helminth parasite of dogs and other canids. The name is derived from the Greek word "," meaning bow or quiver, and the Latin word "caro," meaning flesh.Bassert , J., & T ...
'' is usually asymptomatic but can be fatal in puppies.
A number of various
vertebrate
Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, ...
s, including humans, and some
invertebrates
Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...
can become infected by ''
Toxocara canis
''Toxocara canis'' (also known as dog roundworm) is a worldwide-distributed helminth parasite of dogs and other canids. The name is derived from the Greek word "," meaning bow or quiver, and the Latin word "caro," meaning flesh.Bassert , J., & T ...
''. Humans are infected, like other
paratenic
In biology and medicine, a host is a larger organism that harbours a smaller organism; whether a parasitic, a mutualistic, or a commensalist ''guest'' (symbiont). The guest is typically provided with nourishment and shelter. Examples include a ...
hosts, by ingestion of embryonated ''T. canis'' eggs.
The disease caused by migrating ''T. canis'' larvae (
toxocariasis
Toxocariasis is an illness of humans caused by the dog roundworm (''Toxocara canis'') and, less frequently, the cat roundworm (''Toxocara cati'').https://academic.oup.com/ajcp/article/142/suppl_1/A104/1771175 Eosinophilic Pseudoleukemia Due to To ...
) results in
visceralis larva migrans and
ocularis larva migrans. Clinically infected people have
helminth
Parasitic worms, also known as helminths, are large macroparasites; adults can generally be seen with the naked eye. Many are intestinal worms that are soil-transmitted and infect the gastrointestinal tract. Other parasitic worms such as schi ...
infection and rarely
blindness
Visual impairment, also known as vision impairment, is a medical definition primarily measured based on an individual's better eye visual acuity; in the absence of treatment such as correctable eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment†...
.
See also
*
Motocrotte
The Motocrotte, officially called Caninette and informally chiraclette was a small motorized vehicle designed to vacuum up dog faeces in Paris and other French cities.
Introduced in 1982 by Jacques Chirac (then Mayor of Paris), the idea was to p ...
– motorcycle-based solution for cleaning the streets of Paris
*
Mutt Mitt – a plastic mitt used to pick up waste from pets
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
ROMP (Responsible Owners of Mannerly Pets), metropolitan
Twin Cities
Twin cities are a special case of two neighboring cities or urban centres that grow into a single conurbation – or narrowly separated urban areas – over time. There are no formal criteria, but twin cities are generally comparable in statu ...
recreation-advocacy group; June 1996 in Roseville, MN, nonprofit incorporation April 2000
About ROMP
nowiki>">/nowik
About ROMP
nowiki>/nowiki>
*
*
*
New York attorney and dog lawyer;
External links
*
{{Bags
Sanitation
Pet equipment
Waste collection
Dog equipment
Feces