{"id":4992,"date":"2015-03-11T14:10:27","date_gmt":"2015-03-11T19:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/?p=4992"},"modified":"2015-03-12T19:28:31","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T00:28:31","slug":"first-annual-pick-up-the-poop-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/?p=4992","title":{"rendered":"First Annual Pick-up the Poop Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>The issue here is not just about dog poop.<br \/>\nIt is more about caring for our wild spaces.<br \/>\nWhen we are out for a walk,<br \/>\nare we conscience of the land<br \/>\nand the parks we value so much?<\/i><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4994\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Dog.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4994\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4994\" src=\"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Dog-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"All you need is a bucket, plastic bag, mutt mitt or pooper scooper.\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Dog-300x224.jpg 300w, http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Dog-1024x764.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Dog.jpg 1296w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4994\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">All you need is a bucket, plastic bag, mutt mitt or pooper scooper.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Calling all dog owners, the city of Minnetonka is heading the first city-wide &#8220;Pick-up the Poop&#8221; day in the state of Minnesota (<em>That may not be true<\/em>). Saturday, March 14th\u00a0 10 am to noon at Purgatory Park (17315 Excelsior Blvd, Mntka).\u00a0 Bring a bucket, big plastic bag, a &#8220;mutt mitt&#8221; or scooper and your pooch. If you are going to pick-up at another park, come to Purgatory Park for the weigh in. Early returns from Evergreen Park show a collection of 20 lbs.<\/p>\n<p>Why pick-up poop?<br \/>\nOur suburban wild spaces are out of balance. Normally in an open space of 20 acres, there might be one family of foxes. Introduce 100 dogs into that space and nature&#8217;s balance is negatively impacted. 90% of\u00a0 the dog owners\u00a0 pick up after their dogs. The 10% (10 dogs\/owners) who are not picking up, are creating the problem. We can estimate that those 10 dogs might leave 5 pounds of poop each week. Multiply that over a 5 month winter\u00a0 (November to March). Now you have 100 pounds of poop on the land. When the spring rains come, the pet waste runs into our low areas, ponds and creeks. Now we have a water quality issue.\u00a0 The poop that stays in forest is a public health problem . The bacteria and pathogens in animal waste can negatively impact wild and domestic animals that eat it.<\/p>\n<p>We all love our dogs. But we also love the land that we walk on. We need to be as caring about the land as much as we do our dogs.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4899\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/mookie.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4899\" class=\"size-large wp-image-4899\" src=\"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/mookie-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Mookie\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/mookie-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/mookie-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/mookie.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4899\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mookie<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The issue here is not just about dog poop. It is more about caring for our wild spaces. When we are out for a walk, are we conscience of the land and the parks we value so much? Calling all &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/?p=4992\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature-guardians"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4992"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5002,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4992\/revisions\/5002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oldnaturalist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}