The scoop on the poop on S.F. streets

By Heather Smith, Mission Local

How did San Francisco go from being in the technological vanguard of dog poop innovation to falling somewhere behind Boston and Phoenix? It’s a long story. Welcome, reader, to the second part of Mission Local’s series on that which people pretend not to see but also look for carefully, so as to avoid stepping in it.

After the first part of the series, which touched on the delicate subject of humans pooping in the street (only illegal since 2002!), we got several letters from readers saying that humans were getting a bad rap. Look, they said, to the dogs.

Some of them cited arguments to this effect, which we checked. There are more dogs than babies in San Francisco? True. And babies rarely poop in the street? True. Dog pee is an acid that, in sufficient quantities, eats through bark and kills trees dead? True. Heartworm is on the rise in San Francisco, due perhaps to a correlation between those disinclined to take their dog to the vet and those disinclined to pick up their dog’s poop? Sure looks that way.

Read the complete story at Mission Local.