Cleaning up after your dog

I belong to a couple of listservs for expats in India. Generally we are asking each other questions about where you can take tae kwan do classes in New Delhi, or who has a maid that is looking for extra work, etc. There was an interesting thread posted by someone from the British Council, about cleaning up after your dog, which is apparently an issue here. I include the thread below.

Original Poster:

I was told off the other day for picking up my dog's poo on the street. Apparently I shouldn't do it as "we have a service for that". I feel really guilty leaving big Labrador poo all around the neighbourhood, but I wouldn't want to offend cultural norms.

Reply 1:

One thought....

Does it have anything to do with the fact that many burn dung as fuel here?  Granted, it's usually dung from cows, but perhaps..... who knows.

Maybe the guy was just having one of those days and your poo-collecting put him over the edge. Maybe he secretly felt ashamed for not picking up after his own dog, and got defensive. Who knows.

Given the absence of posts saying "that happened to me too", I gather it was a one-off thing, but certainly very entertaining.

Thank you for being so considerate as to poop-and-scoop. I wish more dog-owners did the same.


Reply #2:

There might be a service in place but whether or not it gets done is another story. I hate to say it but I have my doubts!

Maybe it's just the stigma that only low-caste people collect rubbish and clean etc. I'd personally still keep picking it up.

Reply #3

Unlike NY and other European cities, cities in India don’t have any problem with dog poo. I guess they feel since it’s so dirty already, with all these strays pooing all over anyway-some more won’t harm. On a serious note, poo is considered unclean by most Indians. They would never pick it up-not theirs, nor their pets and so they probably objected to you picking it up.

In all my years here, I have never seen anyone pick up dog poo. Very expected though, ppl pooing on the streets is common enough and no one bothers with their poo. Still wondering what service there is-I guess they mean the DMC-Delhi municipal corp which has sweepers cleaning up the markets.


AND FINALLY, from the Original Poster:

Thanks for all the replies: public and private. I think I will stand up for responsible dog owners around the world and pick up my dog poo with pride :-)

After all it's not me that has a problem with it and I am helping making Delhi a cleaner city.