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We live on a street that's called a "loop" and which actually is a loop. It's one mile around, and a lot of people walk their dogs. Beginning some time last fall, either someone new moved into the neighborhood and never learned to pick up their dog poop, or one of the existing residents stopped picking up, but there's been a lot of poop both in the ditches and on the street.

So back in January, after I went into our ditch to pick up some recycling that had blown out of a neighbor's bin, and stepped in some (fresh, not frozen) dog poop, and then tracked it into the house, I decided it was time to take action. Rather than standing in the ditch with a sand wedge and "blasting out of the bunker" every time someone walked past with a dog, I decided that maybe a nudge would suffice. So I bought a Dogipot Bag Dispenser and got permission from the neighborhood HOA to put that and a sign on the corner of out lot, near an intersection on one end of the loop.

I also had bought Chris Pye's Lettercarving in Wood: A Practical Course and got busy learning. Mostly I needed to learn to carve Os that looked good.

First was finding a piece of wood. I had a fairly clear piece of alder, and from carving my previous sign I knew that alder worked pretty well for me.

Next was carving the letters. I did the smaller script letters with a V tool, just tracing along pencil lines, but the larger letters were incised with gouges at a 45 degree angle. I ended up using 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9 sweeps to get the Os looking the way I wanted. Probably could do it with fewer tools, but that would've taken more time for learning…

Then I painted the letters with Real Milk Paint Aqua paint, which looks like a nice turquoise, which fits, since we're in New Mexico. That's photo 2. I think there were four coats altogether.

Photo 3 shows the circle and slash carved with a #7/14 gouge. I used some 1Shot Bright Red lettering enamel to paint that, which is photo 4.

Then I put three coats of Cabot Satin Spar Polyurethane on the sign, hoping to lock everything in.

Today, the post went in the ground, and the sign and dog-poop-bag-dispenser got attached to the post. Done!

I've already gotten compliments on it from a couple neighbors. Hopefully it'll encourage folks to pick up after their pooches, but time will tell.

Gallery

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Nice sign, best of luck motivating a few bad apples to do the right thing. Myself I might have used different method. Find the offender then deposit the poop in something they like alot, such as fancy car, or the grill on the back porch to be quite effective. Or go high tech and video the offense and just post on the internet. LOL
 

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Thanks, Butcher. I still really like the blasting out of the bunker with a sand wedge idea, and that may end up being plan B. All the neighbors I've told about that idea have laughed, so I think I'd have some support…
 

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Nice neighborly addition Dave, good for everyone. Looks like a good area for walks, I see no signs of goat heads that always get tracked inside (usually where you'll find them when barefoot).
No possibility of something like that lasting more than a day around here, neighbors just let all their dogs run loose in packs.
 

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Yes nothing worse than stepping in it though mowing it could be!
Very proactively community minded of you both the sign and the dispenser, well done!
 

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In my downtown Churchill, that sign would have been lifted and I don't need to say what would be deposited in its place…

Unfortunately there are people that just don't give a crap and leave it to the dogs.
 

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Thanks, Splint. I try to be a good neighbor. Some of my neighbors, like the dentist with her Porsche SUV who almost ran over us when we were walking to the mailbox yesterday, make it challenging…

Peter, easier to try and get ahead of the game, I figure.

Duckie, I had a neighbor in Minneapolis like that. Part of the reason I moved away.
 

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Good job I hope it works, always bad when you have people so disrespectful in the neighbor hood. (Trashy Folks)
 

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nice sign and great idea dave hope it solves the problem,if not id go with gunnies soloution.if it gets real bad i think gunny has access to a tank or two!!!
 

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You're a really good guy to volunteer this effort, hats off to you Dave. I'm guessing you've eliminated wild animals being the culprit here, which is a reoccurring problem in my neck of the country.
 

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Duckie, I had a neighbor in Minneapolis like that. Part of the reason I moved away.
- Dave Polaschek
Yeah… crappy reason to have to move interstate… but there are some people you just can't get far enough away from.. just ask my ex-neighbours.
Nice sign, best of luck motivating a few bad apples to do the right thing. Myself I might have used different method. Find the offender then deposit the poop in something they like alot, such as fancy car, or the grill on the back porch to be quite effective. Or go high tech and video the offense and just post on the internet. LOL

- woodbutcherbynight
I get a lot of that outside my front door… and I don't own a dog or a cat. Maybe some (many) one(s) are saying something.
 

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Thanks, Oldrivers! There's always one, it seems. But I'm hoping it's someone who just isn't thinking, but our neighbors a couple houses down have two little dogs that have both caught parasites from some of the dog poop in the neighborhood, so I suspect I'm not the only one.

Thanks, Pottz. The offending droppings are definitely larger than beagle-size. We picked up our ditch today after I finished putting up the sign, so I'm hoping it'll stay clean now.

Thanks, Tom. Seems to me, it's what good neighbors do. But I was raised on a farm, not born in a barn, if that makes sense.

Ducky, it was one of many reasons. We're both much happier here, and my ex-neighbor got evicted from her house just in time for mine to go on the market, so the people who bought my place won't have to deal with her. Took me five years, but I improved that neighborhood, too.

Got a text from a neighbor of mine. Her pony (really an Irish Wolfhound named Rory) approves of the sign.

 

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I like the sign Dave it looks like it was installed by the town. Whether it works or not time will tell. It's a shame you go through all that trouble to make things better and some people just don't care. Had a similar problem with a neighbor down the street and did gunny's solution. They don't even come down the street this way anymore.
 

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And like a good neighbor, Dave P is there.

Surprised you actually got permission to install in the first place.
 

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Thanks, Dave! I'm going to keep thinking it's just someone who isn't thinking until they prove otherwise. But now that it's not winter, I can't just punt the frozen poops into the weeds any more, so Something Needed To Be Done.

Brian, signs do require approval, but dog poop on the street trumps other considerations, it seems. Also, I volunteered to stock the bags in the dispenser, saving the HOA the cost of buying bags. Another neighbor maintains another box like this (no sign, though), so I sold it to the HOA board by saying, "just like the one on the other end of the loop." And then I decided to make the sign. So far, all the comments have been positive.
 

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this is real nice of you Dave but i would not put that wedge to far back into closet some people just dont learn

GREAT JOB :<)))) GRATZ TOP 3 Your 0s are top notch
 

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Thanks, Tony! I spent a lot of time practicing them on a scrap before carving them in the final sign, and then using a knife to clean up a couple problematic spots.

And yeah, some people just don't learn. But maybe I can get a other neighbor to help with that. It's interesting how many people have already commented in just one day. I suspect I could sell a dozen more signs if I had them ready to go while people are thinking about poop
 

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Nice. it constantly amazes me the lack of consideration some dog owners have. A sign on my "loop" was on a slab pf stone: "Filthy animals, clean-up after your pets." Point made. Your work has enhanced the view of the Sangre de Cristos and the Jemez to the west. Best, Brian
 

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Nice sign but there are people who will just ignore it like they also ignore speed limit signs. Does anyone go the posted speed limit any more???

On my long driveway my dog and the local fox keep exchanging markings….piles of poop. Fox love to leave their marks on paths and driveways. I even had one leave his mark on the door mat. He was determined to let my dog know he was around. Sneaky though, he only comes around at night. LOL
 

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Thanks, Brian. We've only been in the neighborhood for a year and a half, so while we're not the newest kids, we still haven't met everyone. So I'll keep it low key before I escalate,

Les, we've got coyotes here, but it's trivially easy to tell coyote scat from dog poop, since the coyotes eat berries, which few dogs do. And it's only been one day, but there's no new poop in our ditch, so it's "so far so good!"
 

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i gotta say dave this sure is a crappy thread ! ;-)
 
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