Public Shaming and the Pooh Lane

It's been 4 nights that the kid has woken me because of a persistent cough, and as a result,  a tinge of fatigue is skewing my attitude today. Here is today's rant; I'm tired of always looking down on the sidewalk to make sure the kid or I don't step in dog crap. There's nothing fun about using a leaf to scrape a lump of shit off the wheel of the stroller. I don't know if it's because of the high density of pets in our area or just plain laziness, but it's bad. Every day the path from our place to the beach is slick with fresh pee and shit bombs and after weeks without rain, I can hardly breath it's so rank. We've even nicknamed the path "the pooh lane".

The canal avenue behind our place seems like a pleasant place to walk, there's a wide sidewalk, shade trees and a view of the water. Unfortunately, it's completely unusable; there is way too much dog crap. I guess dog owners walk their dogs there because there is no beach traffic and there's no one around to see that they are irresponsible and lazy.

Today, I was pushing the kid in the stroller on the main beach avenue and right in front of me a woman watched her little dog take a dump right in the middle of the sidewalk and kept going. There were other people looking at her and the dog, but no one said anything. I was so shocked! She even had a baggie attached to her leash. I called after her, pointing to the crap and said: "Por favor!" She kept walking as I yelled louder at her. She turned around impatiently and said :" Ta, vou pegar!" (fine, I'll pick it up). At last, a little social shaming at work!

I can't tell you how many Brazilians blame each other's bad behavior by saying: "Oh, it's lack of education." How much education do you need to pick up dog crap? A Masters' degree? I call bullshit or in this case dog shit. It has nothing to do about about where you live or how much education you have, it's about respecting your community. And sometimes it's okay to REMIND your community to respect you. So, I'm sorry I embarrassed you lady with the little dog, but you know what to do next time.

Hopefully I get some sleep tonight.... :)

On another pet related note, a funny thing happened the other day while we were walking along the beach. In the wild grasses along the sand we saw a little brown animal about the size of a squirrel scurry away down the sandy path. My husband said: "Oh, look! How cute! A baby capivara!" "Capivara? I said in disbelief (The capivaras I've seen here are the size of sheep) Do they live by the beach? I asked. Upon closer inspection, I laughed when I realized it was just a guinea pig. I guess someone took little guinea to "farm/beach".

 

The thing is that my husband wasn't so wrong. Apparently, the capivara is the largest rodent in the world, followed by the beaver and the porcupine AND they are totally related to guinea pigs!