Dogs are an important part of living in Hoboken. And while most dog owners are courteous, there does seem to be a significant number of dog owners who are not. I see dog poop on the sidewalk multiple times per week, which is pretty annoying, but not as annoying as NOT seeing it, stepping in it and having to refrain from foul language in front of my six year old.
What can we do? The first thing I would try is to encourage and enforce dog registrations. I believe that once registered: owners will be more responsible for their pets, plus we’ll know more dogs are vaccinated for rabies.
Once registering dogs become a habit, there are two additional possibilities if the act of having most dogs registered isn’t helping reduce dog poop considerably: We can take DNA from each registered dog and test found poop. We can ‘air tag’ dogs, and allow the police or, if too busy: the health department to do ‘the dirty work’ finding the offending dogs and there owners.
Finally: I think all dog walkers should be registered with the city as a sort of ‘health worker’, AND we can encourage those dog walkers to pick up after other dogs (ask me about some creative ideas here).