Even more so, in many parks it is possible to spot plastic bags filled with poop hanging from small trees, the branches of bushes, or on top of fences.
8 Collins (
2012) even describes this practice by dog owners as ‘bagging dirt and leaving it hanging like “baubles” from hedgerows.’ Consequently, the term ‘shit trees’ recently entered the
Online Urban Dictionary(urbandictionary.com) defining these as ‘Trees with bags of dog shit hanging from them’ and specifying that ‘when an owner of a dog takes it for a walk, bags up the dog shit and throws it into a tree where it proceeds to dangle from the branches, therefore producing shit trees.’ In a poll on ‘Do you hang your dog poop bags in trees?’ (
www.social-anxiety-community.org) over 15% of all dog owners (3.3% of all respondents) stated they have done this because they think it looks pretty. Nobody stated that they do it because they are lazy. After all, blogs and debates on the web show that there is some intention ascribable to dog owners’ behaviour. One dog owner ironically even pointed out to me that the beauty of dog poop hanging from trees is something that only true dog lovers can appreciate. Thus at least one can say there is an agenda for hanging poop in trees, fences, and bushes.
