Aussies are calling for a nationwide crackdown on an issue plaguing our streets.
It seems no one is safe, whether you live in a rural town in the middle of nowhere or the centre of the CBD, there's one issue uniting the Australian people. Dog poo.
With dogs being the most popular pet by a landslide, we're faced with the issue of owners walking their dog and leaving their droppings on the ground.
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That's not to say that if you don't pick up your dog's poo you're the worst person alive (we've all done it once or twice), but some Aussies are just simply sick of feeling like they're navigating (non-fatal) landmines when out for a walk.
According to research conducted by PureProfile, 35 per cent of Aussies want offenders to face at least 10 hours of community service as punishment.
But how do we figure out who left what pile of poo, I hear you ask. Well, there seems to be a solution on the horizon so once and for all solve the important question of ‘poodunnit'.
Two senior entrepreneurs, Alice Needham and Philip Chaplin, have commissioned research into dog poo DNA testing as a way to trace the droppings back to the owner.
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A town in Italy has already got a jump on the movement.
Bolzano, in northern Italy, ordered all citizens to have their dogs DNA tested so the results could be inserted into a database.
The information was intended to allow the police to test the poo and refer to the database in order to track down the culprit and their owner.
The law required all 45,000 dogs in the province to be tested at the local vet by December 2023, however as of an article released in January 2024, only 5,000 dogs had received their DNA test.
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This exact kind of system seems to be what Aussies are pushing for, with 46 per cent of dog owners and 57 per cent of non-dog owners saying they support the introduction of dog poo DNA testing.
In the meantime, Needham and Chaplin have come up with another solution.
They've invented a hands-free device that clips to your dogs lead and carries your bag of poo for you, after finding out that carrying their dog's business while they wait to come across the bin is the main reason owners prefer to leave it behind.
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It's called the Wagaloot DooLacky and can carry up tp 27kgs of poo, so if you find yourself out on a walk with 40 Great Danes one day (give or take), you'll be covered.
“As a Melburnian, I agree we need more dog poo bins because no one enjoys holding a dog turd for longer than they have to,” said Needham. “Unfortunately, there still seems to be a lot of shame associated with holding a bag full of dog poo, which is why we think this hand's free innovation will be a hit.
“While there are plenty of bag dispensers on the market, none of them are designed to hold the bag when it's full of poo. Philip's brainwave solution came to him at 2am in the morning, it might even be a world first!”
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