"I believe you dropped this, señorita..."

[Fairportfan]

Town mails discarded dog poop back to errant pet owners

Dog parks are an oasis for millions of pet owners; pups can run around, interact with other dogs and get a taste of nature without having to head out of town on weekends.

Some careless dog owners, however, don't abide by dog park rules, or simple common decency, and leave their dogs' waste behind for others to clean up.

Well, a small town in Spain, reports the Telegraph, has decided to remedy the situation by mailing the discarded dog excrement back to the offending owners.

The paper reports that the town council of Brunete, located about 20 miles from Madrid, has undertaken a complex effort to crack down on the disrespectful dog owners. Twenty volunteers have been enlisted to approach dog owners who leave their pets poop behind, and to strike up a conversation with the goal of finding out the name of the dog.

"With the name of the dog and the breed it was possible to identify the owner from the registered pet database held in the town hall," a spokesman from the council told the Telegraph.

Once the owners address was confirmed, the dog poop is scooped up, placed in a box containing the town halls insignia and delivered via courier to the owners home. And to top it all off, the box is labeled, Lost Property.

So far, 147 boxes of dog excrement have been mailed in the town, which is home to about 10,000 residents. And its been effective: Brunete says unwarranted dog drops have declined by some 70 percent since the campaign began.

And the company that developed the approach free of charge even won the Sol de Plata award at the 2013 Ibero-American Advertising Festival.

"We told them we didn't have a penny to spend, but they found the idea so novel and exciting that they decided to work with us anyway," the spokesman told The Local.

It's actually couriered, apparently, not mailed:

The volunteers then scooped up the excrement and packaged it in a box branded with town hall insignia and marked 'Lost Property' and delivered by courier to the pet owners home.

I was thinking the Spanish Post Office must be a lot more easy-going than the USPS...

[MerchManDan]

That is amazing, brilliant, and probably the best thing I've read all week.

[Julie]

I wish my apartment complex would do something like that. I mean, come on! They provide several trash bins with pet poop bags for us to use! How hard is it to clean the crap up??

*sigh* Anyhow, kudos to that place in Spain for taking the poop matter seriously and then being proactive about enforcing it.

[Dragon Hostler]

Great Story!

I was contemplating the design of a new air cannon and texted my brother about what new ammo to design it for. He replied Labra-dookie. We are tired of the black Labrador across the street crapping on our lawn. Returning it express 'Airmail' would be fun, but just not enough of a challenge.
I'm more inclined to go to a Chinese or Mexican buffet for dinner, eat hearty, then return the favor to their lawn before sun up. That'll send a more powerful message to the owner as well as the dog.