$500

Warning: If my poop stories bother you, go no further.

I'm not the most diligent person when it comes to picking up dog poop. When I had Molly, I almost never picked it up, but now with Chandler I have almost been reformed. If he poops on a neighbors lawn I definitely clean up after him, but if he goes down by the church, I have rules. The church rules are these, in the daylight if he does it anywhere but up under the bushes, I clean it up. If he drops his load after dark however, and he is up close to the fence or even near the bushes, I leave it. Otherwise, I'm there with the rest of my neighbors walking proudly up the street with a nice, neat, bag of dog shit.

For the last two years I have been walking dogs at Abandoned Pet Rescue, two days a week. Our route for walking the dogs is a two block stretch of weeds and rocks, along the FEC railroad tracks. In addition to the weeds and rocks, there is usually a good smattering of medical waste, discarded liquor bottles, used condoms, and various chunks of household goods ranging from furniture to luggage. So you can understand why when one of our dogs stops to drop a load, we don't really feel it necessary to bend over, and pick it up. Obviously nobody cares about this strip of land. At least that's what we all thought. Last week the city of Fort Lauderdale sent a policeman to the shelter to advise them that we must pick up all the dog poop along that stretch of land. If we are caught letting a dog crap and don't clean it up, it will cost the shelter $500 for each dog. It seems the budget crisis has got so bad in Fort Lauderdale that they are scouring the law books looking for new revenue streams, and somebody saw dollar signs in dog shit.

My first impulse was to defy the order. That is my first impulse whenever cops are involved. I hate being pushed around by steroid bloated bullies. Of course, after I thought about it for a while, I realized that I couldn't put the shelter in jeopardy of getting a fine, so I grabbed a handful of bags and joined the crowd. I'm sure it will all work out just fine, and I'll get used to the job of picking up warm, steaming turds. I just wish the shelter would feed the dogs something that will firm them up a little.