Dog owners being urged to pick up the poo in Cork

Cork City Council has launched a new dog fouling awareness campaign to encourage dog owners to clean up after their pets, despite claims it would encourage children to use bad language.

The campaign features the slogan, ‘Get Your Sh*t Together’, and features an image of a defecating cartoon dog in place of the letter ‘i’.

The campaign, which will feature on posters and signs across the city over the coming months, aims to stimulate debate about the need for more dog owners to pick up their dog’s waste.

It coincides with a plan to hand out free bags for dog faeces, and those bags will be available free from 10am to 4pm from Monday to Friday at City Hall, while stocks last.

Dogs may be humans’ best friends, but their byproducts are not, with their faeces carrying the eggs of toxocara canis, or dog roundworm. Humans exposed to the larvae of these eggs can suffer extreme fever and illness, and severe damage to organs.

Contact with infected dog faeces can cause loss of sight, with children especially at risk.

FINE

Owners who fail to remove dog faeces from a public place can face an on-the-spot litter fine of €150, or a maximum court fine of €3,000.

However, Cork City Council has issued no fines for dog fouling in 2023 or 2024, the two latest years for which figures are available.

The council has said that enforcement of legislation “requires that the litter warden must actually witness both the dog depositing faeces and the person in control of the dog neglecting to remove the faeces”.

Fine Gael city councillor Joe Kavanagh, who is chair of the council’s dog fouling committee, said the campaign’s aim was to capture the attention of dog owners and send a strong message about taking responsibility for dog fouling.

“We hope that the consistent visibility of this message will raise awareness among dog owners of the critical importance of picking up after their dogs,” he said.

However, Sinn Féin councillor Michelle Gould has said she believes the language is inappropriate.

“I just don’t think there’s a need for Cork City Council to lower their standards and have foul language on a poster,” she said.