Not all campaigns are as intense as the one we're running against the deportation of the Mhangos but I take them all seriously. And in recent months I've had loads of letters about dog muck in Dennistoun. Not that I needed them. I live there. I know! I have to dodge it all the time.
I'm going to be working with local people to do something about it and I quite like the approach of the person who placed this on the pavement of my old street, Ingleby Drive - thanks to fellow nat David Livey for passing on the pic. The designer of the poster was clearly getting as fed up as the rest of us.
I heard recently of an even more unique way of highlighting the problem on a Scottish island, possibly Orkney. Fed up with having to dodge it, local residents went out and spray painted each smelly specimen with fluorescent pink spray paint. Fantastic!
Although we may laugh at all of these tactics, we have to remember that it's not just irritating and manky, it's also potentially very dangerous and can cause blindness!
So I need to get out there and find out what we can do to sort this out. Since we started complaining all Dennistoun residents have had a letter reminding them what to do if their dog must make a mess on the streets and warning them of what will happen if they don't dispose of it. Can't say I've noticed much difference so I guess it's about enforcing it.
Any ideas are welcome - I don't mind doing copycat stuff if it's effective so I may well get some pink spray paint!
Well, this campaign has my full support. I don't think I've ever seen a city which has as many problems with Dog Dirt as Glasgow. When I was living in Maryhill, there would regularly be three or four piles on the 200 meter stretch of Maryhill Road between my flat and the shops.
ReplyDeleteMaybe if the council adopted New York's successful "Broken Windows" regeneration strategy and cleaned up little things like the dog mess and took down the barded wire from the top of schools and so on, then people might respect their local areas more not go out of their way to vandalise it.