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A<\/span> PE teacher from Cardiff called Tony is frozen solid after being caught in an avalanche in 1979. There he remains until global heating sees to his thawing and he pops up in the present day, exactly as he was back then. Comedy ensues. This is make-believe, by the way; it\u2019s the premise of Mike Bubbins\u2019 BBC series Mammoth. In the masterful opening scenes, to the sound of Gerry Rafferty\u2019s Get It Right Next Time, we see Tony being scornful, angry, frightened and disgusted by four things that didn\u2019t happen before his big freeze.<\/p>\n He scoffs at a bloke carrying a baby in a sling, gives a charity chugger very short shrift, and jumps out of his skin when a youth on a hoverboard zips past him. But it was Tony\u2019s disgust at a woman picking up her German shepherd\u2019s poo that got me thinking. When did picking up dog poo become the thing to do? Or, put another way, when did just leaving it there become the thing not<\/em> to do? When did we start becoming disgusted at those who didn\u2019t pick it up rather than those who did? This is a pretty seismic cultural shift, I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll agree.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been quizzing dog owners of a certain age about this. No one can quite remember when or how the change came about. What they all agree on is that, in the past, yes, dogs crapped everywhere with impunity. Also, because of the bonemeal used to bulk up dog food, it was white, which must have made it next to impossible to dodge in the snow. My auntie Barbara, who has owned countless dogs over her long life, points out that it was less a case of owners not picking up the poo; it was more that the owners often weren\u2019t with their pets anyway, as dogs were generally left to roam at will. Only rarely did you see them out for walks on leads. I suppose you could argue that these were halcyon days for dogs as well as their owners. Easy life, if all ownership entailed was giving them a roof over their heads at night, some bonemeal-rich Lord-knows-what to eat, and sending them out to go about their daily business as they saw fit. Off you go, have a good one, see you tonight. For dog-sitters, the 50s and 60s must have been lean times indeed.<\/p>\n Apparently my uncle Mike\u2019s dog Tinker used to pop round to say hello most days, Auntie Barbara\u2019s house being a regular call on his daily wanderings around Handsworth. Sweet. And, in its own way, rather civilised \u2013 apart, obviously, from Tinker\u2019s turds, which must have soiled many a shoe in his time. Did it not enrage people when this happened? Apparently not \u2013 it was just part of life. Could it be that the dogshit rage only properly kicked in when picking up the revolting stuff became an option?<\/p>\n For this, it seems we have to thank the former mayor of New York, Ed Koch, who we must assume trod in something one too many times for his liking, and resolved to take action. The consensus is that his landmark 1978 \u201cPooper-Scooper Law\u201d was the gamechanger. Facing down opposition from those who professed concern about dog abandonment and, I suspect, those who just couldn\u2019t face picking it up, he got it through. If you\u2019re interested, there\u2019s a whole book about this: New York\u2019s Poop Scoop Law; Dogs, the Dirt, and Due Process. I\u2019ve not read it, but it\u2019s on my list.<\/p>\n Koch is quoted as saying, \u201cIf you\u2019ve ever stepped in dog doo, you know how important it is to enforce the canine waste law. New Yorkers overwhelmingly do their duty and self-enforce. Those who don\u2019t are not fit to call friend.\u201d I approve this message. Woof woof!<\/p>\n Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist<\/p>\n Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A PE teacher from Cardiff called Tony is frozen solid after being caught in an avalanche in 1979. There he remains until global heating sees to his thawing and he pops up in the present day, exactly as he was back then. Comedy ensues. This is make-believe, by the way; it\u2019s the premise of Mike<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[16288,59,2752,859,2419,17702,5224],"class_list":{"0":"post-41655","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-adrian","9":"tag-chiles","10":"tag-dog","11":"tag-ive","12":"tag-lot","13":"tag-poo","14":"tag-thinking"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}