 "Photo: illustration by Christopher Rose")
There are three things people are never supposed to talk about at the dinner table: politics, your parents having sex and going No. 2. And by No. 2, I'm not referring to the actual number; I'm referring to the expression you used when you were 5 to indicate what would be in the toilet once you were done using the bathroom.
I've noticed many Chico State students walking their dogs around the neighborhood. With a leash in one hand and a bag in the other, I wondered when people decided to start picking up their dogs' poop.
I have to ask. The age-old adage is that dog is man's best friend. But I believe it's the other way around: Man is dog's best friend. Who else would be so beneficent to pick up another being's fecal matter?
Dogs are a man's best friend? I'd never pick up my best friend's poop. But every time Sparky drops a fresh load, the owner will be the first one to have at it.
In any other circumstance, picking up poop, carrying it in a bag and walking around with it in public would be grounds for arrest and six weeks in the local mental asylum.
If aliens came down and saw a human and a dog at the end of the walk, with the human holding a pile of warm dog poop, who would they think owned the planet? When dog walkers are picking up poop from a neighbor's lawn, it is an act of subservience. Next thing you know, they're feeding dogs food in ceramic bowls and dressing them up in designer threads.
When a dog walker is preparing for his or her trip through the neighborhood, this thought actually has to go through a dog walker's head. "Just in case Sparky poops, I need to actually have this black bag to pick the poop up with my bare hands, walk with it the rest of the time and then throw it away in my kitchen garbage can along with my eggshells and milk cartons."
Last June, a Japanese woman became known as Dog Poop Girl when her dog took a dump on a subway train and she refused to clean it up, according to a Washington Post article in June. It started a mass online uproar of people amazed that this woman refused to pick up her puppy's mess.
A subway train may be a little different from someone's lawn, but animal dung is extremely biodegradable. In fact, it has valuable properties. With all this dog poop littering the sidewalks and ending up in America's kitchen trash cans, I propose we start recycling the poop back into the system by using it as biofuel.
In San Francisco, some people proposed using the methane in the poop to heat their homes and generate electricity, when a study revealed that dog poop made up almost 4 percent of people's garbage. Forget solar and wind power. The future is doggie doo-doo, according to a National Geographic news article in March.
So instead of scowling next time you step in a big steaming pile of dog poo, scrape it off and keep it to generate energy. Think of the benefits. Dog poo is free, abundant and accessible. Let's lay off our oil dependence and give the Middle East a break. All America's energy needs are at our baggy-coated fingertips.
Julianne Riddle can be reached at
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