Time to address the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about, or rather that no one can offer a viable solution to.
Anyone on social media in Cochrane is familiar with all the posts about dog feces all over the place – in every community, every corner, public park and private property.
My dog contracted giardia twice in a six-month period. The final vet bills will set me back more than $1,000. I also have a neighbour whose dog has contracted it three times or more.
Even if the town were to hire a dozen more officers, I honestly don’t think they could keep up with the complaints. There is a solution. It might be costly, but all the expense is passed on to the dog owner when bylaws are broken. The fines would pay for it.
It would seem to me that half of the population of dog owners in this town think the bylaws do not apply to them, or maybe they are “too good” to clean up after their pets. This is something I will never understand, and it angers me a lot. The solution is as basic as a simple swab of your dog’s mouth, this sample is returned to the town upon renewal of your dog licence and then fed into a data bank.
One or two bylaw officers are then hired to go out and collect fecal samples and the cash starts to roll in immediately! Each offence comes with a fine and increases with each and every offence. Just imagine how much money can be collected. This method is proven to be 90 per cent effective based on studies done in France and a few selected locations in the USA.
I am reading many social media posts about how bad this town is for dog feces. A lot of these posts are from Canadians from other cities, how embarrassing that our town is getting this reputation.
If you are one of the many pet owners who refuses to clean up after your pet, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Terry Deisman
