Text Size:
A|
A|
A
Email
PrintThe straight poop
 |
 |
|
James Hilston Click illustration for larger image. |
You might not be aware that dog poop removal has become a mature industry, with more than 300 companies willing to clear your property of steaming land mines deposited by Fido. There's even an Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists (aPaws.org), which hosts the annual Pooper Scooper Round-Up, a three-day conference highlighted by the always-memorable Turd Herding Contest, a competition to see who can pick up the most dog mounds (technically sun-blackened pieces of potatoes) the fastest.
Legends of the game
The Andrew Carnegie of the poop-collecting business is Matthew Osborn, who started the Pet Butler in Columbus in 1987. With a family to support, Osborn was making less than $6 an hour at two jobs when he did some research and learned there were 100,000 dogs within 15 miles of his home. He figured not everybody appreciated the joys of cleaning up after Rex. Eventually, he had 700 regular customers. In 1998, Osborn sold his business, started Pooper-Scooper.com, an international directory of pet waste removal businesses, and wrote a book on how to make picking up dog droppings work for you.
Matt "Red" Boswell took the business to the next level. He owns the Texas-based Pet Butler, the largest pet waste removal service in the country, with about 3,000 clients. (He refers to himself as "chief excrement officer.") Boswell's company is projected to gross over a million dollars and has nearly 20 franchises all over the country. "We plan on becoming the Microsoft of dog poop," he said. Boswell, by the way, is a Turd Herding winner, but not without controversy. He decided to forgo tools and just stuffed the lumps in his pants. The woman who came in second griped that it wasn't a legitimate real-world technique, but Boswell's win was upheld.
Source: Salon.com article by Sam Boykin
Watch your step in Paris
"He's the one picking up after his dog."
The old joke, sanitized for publication, reflects Paris's reputation as the most dog-dookie plagued city in the world. But they're trying to get a handle on it. Paris has a dog poop patrol. And the threat of a $500 fine might be helping.
The language of dog doo
Boswell calls his employees "fecal matter removal technicians," which gives them something dignified to put on their tax forms. But the real linguistic triumph is that, not unlike the hair-cutting business, dog pucky removal is a punster's delight: Dog-gone-it, Dog Entremanure, Dog Business Is Big Business, DoodyCalls. Jeff Jones, a 14-year-old entremanure in Seattle, runs Turds by the Yard. A Beaver County outfit calls itself Here's The Scoop! and advertises that "We stand behind our work, so that you don't step in it."
To find a service, check pghdogs.com/poopscoop.php.
Dog power
If you think you are virtuous because you dutifully pick up your dog stuff in a Post-Gazette plastic wrapper and throw it in the garbage, listen up. San Francisco is the first city to consider turning Duke's droppings into methane, which can heat homes, cook meals and generate electricity. The estimated 10 million tons of dog and cat waste a year usually end up in a landfill, where they mummify for generations in plastic bags. If the stuff is left on the ground, it dissolves and flows untreated into the water table.
So San Francisco wants to place dog-waste carts in busy parks, says sfgate.com. The waste would be tossed into a tank in which bacteria chew on poo to create methane. The methane could be piped directly to a gas stove, heater, turbine or anything else powered by natural gas. Far-fetched? Several other countries and some American dairy farms already convert animal waste into energy.
The French influence?
A retired professor of French at the University of Northern Colorado is accused of sending a mailer of dog feces to Republican U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, DenverPost.com reported. Kathleen Ensz, 63, wouldn't say why. Her friends say she supports Musgrave's opponent.
These kids and their pranks.
