ABSTRACT
When it comes to a human’s best friend it seems Western societies turn a blind eye to practices that fail to meet their usually high standards of everyday hygiene. This chapter will explore practices related to canine excrement and the micro-interactionist strategies deployed by dog owners and non-owners to cope with it. We present here the results of our own observations of the habitual behavior of dog-walkers at various times of the day in various settings, mainly in Germany and Portugal-the authors’ respective countries of residence-but also report on similar observations made in Poland, France, Belgium, Britain, and Japan. Our account is also based on our own experiences of dog walking and engaging in the removal of excrement. We draw additionally on a number of informal conversations with dog owners and non-owners on such topics, including the techniques used to deal with excrement, as well as reports and discussions published online. In thus exploring the ways dog waste is removed, we try and solve the riddle of why, in some cases, even when action has been taken to clean it up, plastic bags filled with dog droppings have been thrown onto the ground in certain carefully selected spots or even hung up in trees or displayed on fence posts or railings. The chapter will present inquiries into micro-forms of interactional behavior and dog walking and pooping practices. Some of these strategies will be accounted for as qualitatively new forms of what Erving Goffman (1971) once referred to as civil inattention. Thus, we explore the logic of civil inattention by focusing on what might be called “poop on display.”
