Dog Bombs - what do you do?

20 years ago

I work for a small lanscaping company, and lately we've been running into lots of dog doo.

I'm wondering how other professional gardners/lanscapers handle the issue.

Usually, if it is just a little, I'll move it out of the way and do my best to get the job done right. If there's an area that is really full of dog droppings, I'll skip the area, or only pull weeds, etc., if I can do so without touching the droppings.

The owner of my company will occassionaly tell homeowners to clean the yard before we are scheduled to work there, but mostly we have to deal with it.

I'm wondering how other people who do this kind of work handle this issue. I feel pretty strongly that I'd have to get paid a good deal more to be expected to deal with more than a very small amount of dog doo that got missed in the clean up process.

Thanks,

CarrieB

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Comments (5)

mylu
20 years ago
There's lots of cash in doo-doo...
Start your own company, call your bosses clients and pick up the doo-doo before your go on site and charge your new customer what you feel is an appropriate amount!
watergal
20 years ago
There are actually companies that do dog poop cleanup - I found several in the Maryland Pet Gazette magazine. I'm trying to think of a tactful way to share one of their business cards with your clients...
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Embothrium
20 years ago
A mowing service I worked for when I started out took buckets along and picked up the turds before mowing. By the end of the day each bucket had quite a load. Disgusting! We were doing alot of places with close-cut lawns maintained with reel mowers, making perfect passes each time so the stripes were just so, and all that kind of low intelligence nonsense that the customers were focused on instead of having nice gardens. If there were any interesting specimens or combinations at any of these places, I don't remember them. The contradiction of on the one hand the faux sophistication of paying to have a golf course lawn and on the other hand the sloppiness (illegality?) of loose dogs, some of them quite large (and generating quite large detritus) running around and soiling the same areas every day was not lost on me.

Yet, a guy I know that has worked mostly by himself mowing and pruning for some decades now has always just mowed right through the stuff. Must have different kinds of customers. He does seem to use rotary mowers quite a bit, maybe exclusively.
Cady
20 years ago
I've been fortunate so far, since none of my clients has had a dog. A gardener/hort person or designer is not responsible for doing the doo duty, so if I encountered mounds while doing my rounds, I'd politely ask the homeowner to have the stuff removed before I did any digging, staking or other work.

The reference to dog "bombs" gave me a chuckle. Here's a link to a poop removal service that calls itself Minesweepers. Their page has a list of lots of the nicknames for dog doo. You probably have businesses like this in your area, as lots of people are jumping on the dog poop bandwagon seeing a lucrative new line of work in urban areas.

Here is a link that might be useful: Minesweepers
Embothrium
20 years ago
If a dog poop bandwagon drove up jumping on it would be my last thought.