Irresponsible dog owners

I'n not sure how to start this. It has bothered my wife for some time, and I used to think she was just over-reacting. After I tracked in someone elses mess and had to scrub it off the steps and out of the carpet, I understood what had bothered her so much. To start, we have to big dogs, who make, well, big piles. Part of our supplies are a small shovel, lots of plastic bags(thanks Home Depot), short leashes, shot records and cables we secure to the frame to keep the babies at our sides while out on the 'patio'. We have just started to stay at military CG's, but found this attitude at all other camprounds. The dog walks are full of poop. So are the walks TO the dog walks, and even in some vacant campsites. Just about everyone has a dog or 2 and only a few carry the obligatory baggie. We came across a guy who commented "WOW, you dogs must poop alot(the wife had 'policed' the whole area and filled 2 bags). That's the good thing about small dogs, you don't have to worry about picking it up". WHAT???? Just because you have a small dog shouldn't mean you do not have to clean up after it. Poop is, after all, poop. This guy even laughed when he said he lets his dog out in the ball fields instead of the dog park because the grass is nicer. "Still fenced in and all". Are we missing something? We didn't say anything about it because, how do you prove who's not cleaning up? After the initial clean up, the wife just hads me the baggies and we do the right thing. By the end of our short stays, it's beginning to 'pile' up again.

Anyone else notice this? Or are we being to fussy?

there is no excuse for this type behavior. We travel with two small family members, a male and a female miniature schnauzer. The female weighs in at about 9 pounds and is tiny. The younger male is about 14 pounds and is a little bigger. We also have a bad dispenser attached to one of the leashes. We never go out without a bad and, I can promise, never come back with it empty.

I can't tell you the number of times I've seen dog droppings that were just left for someone else to clean up. I'm surprised at the guy you talked to about his saying you don't have to pick up after small dogs. Since they are small it is easier to pick up after than. His statement is outragious. (My experience has actually been that the bigger the dog the less apt the owner is to clean up after it. That is just my take on this.) I've had many maintenance people in parks thank me when they see me picking up after the dogs. That tells me right there that there is a problem with people not doing this. So far my experience with the military campgrounds is that it is not as big a problem as in the private parks. Hopefully, that is because military folk are a better grade of people.

Not only do I resent folks that don't clean up after their pets but my real pet peeve is the locations of the dog walks. They are often times well away from the camp sites. The problem is both my dogs usually need to go well before we get to the dog walk area. We stayed in one park in Tucson, that was a residential park, while at a rally. The dog walk area was on the other side of a "no pet" area. As we were trying to get from our coach to the dog walk we had residents yelling at us that "this street is a no pet area". We wound up putting them in the car and driving them to the dog walk.

Your point on the location of the dog walks explained some of the problem. A couple of the KOA's we were in, the walks seemed to be somewhat of an after thought. Now that we have discovered the military CG's, we hope to run into(or in my case, step into)less of the problem.

I like the idea of the baggie dispenser, but I'm hanging onto a 90lb shepherd and a 110lb lab/mastiff so my wife is the 'dispenser'-she's going to love that I wrote that .

Thanks for the reply and hope to see you out there somewhere.

Another pet peeve is those who let their dogs stretch the leash where they can hike and squat on your campsite. Then when our Yorkie is outside (leashed) it drives him crazy. If you are visiting my campsite that's one thing, but when you are walking down the road and let them do it thats a different ballgame. I try to treat others like I want to be treated.

When we(mostly I)walk the dogs, the are on short leashes. When we stop to chat, the dogs just sit and wait(and wait....). I have seen what you mean by stretching the leash to end up 20 feet away. On site, the cables we attach to the frame still only leaves the dogs about 10 feet or so, and they are NEVER without one of us and NEVER off our site. While we used to 'hook' them to the picnic tables, these long or no leashers created a problem of our babies dragging the table along as they went to play with the 'visitor'. Now I get to crawl under the coach to get a solid hook for the cables.

We hope to see less of this now that we stay mostly in the military CG's.

I agree, this is a "pet peeve". of mine also. I can't believe people can be so rude. I have noticed that some campgrounds, put it in bold capital letters, in there list of rules. There are groups of people who do not feel the rules apply to them. There is no excuses for this behavior. I'm afraid, this will cause campgrounds to restrict allowing dog in campgrounds. I have seen more rules being made, because of the rudeness of a few, but yet we have to pay for there blatant disdain for rules, and laws. Maybe they will bring lynching back. >