Dog muck

[quarry901]

We have just returned from two weeks in our apartment in Corre. Our last visit was in August last year and what a difference a few months make. We had a LONG walk upto the newish Mercadona and at one point I was lent against a wall heaving, desperatley trying to stop myself from vomiting. The amount of dog muck from Tamarindo up the hill was amazing. The planted areas that line each side of the road where like a litter tray and  full of it. But our walks into town from El Campanrio or the parallel road where just the same. I have sent a email to town hall for what good it will do. It was so bad and unavoidable that I have emailed our next guests to apologies in advance and had a not nice email from earlier guests, saying they have not been anywhere as bad and wont be going back.

[Florence]

I know.  There is no big stigma attached to not cleaning up after your dogs here.  One day they may make it mandatory to chip dogs and take samples of their DNA - like they do on Corfu.

[Johnny]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150839266471955&set=p.10150839266471955&type=1&theater

[zedzedeleven]

Well that is extraordinary quarry 901, we did the self same walk in march, up round to the golf course and found exactly the same disgusting problem. The pica must seem ideal to a dog (and its owner). I pity the poor people that have bought property up there.

[appy ammer]

we dont get nun of that stuff int caleta

[swl]

Used to be quite a problem around the coast path at Bristol Playa area but noted in was somewhat cleaner this year.

[Sandy D]

Mmm saw quite a few in the car park opposite Gambrinies and on side streets in Caleta this afternoon and was sitting at beach close to harbour in Corry on sunday afternoon saw lots of it and watched a guy wait while his dog did its buisness on the beach then walk away

[zedzedeleven]

Yes swl it was really disheartening to watch the Bristol Playa promenade deteriorate from it`s first good intentions. Bins and bags were provided, seats, a street gym etc and none of it received any maintenance at all. The bins never got emptied, the bags never got replaced and the vandals have done their best to destroy the street furniture and daubed it with graffiti. I know that the council are not obliged to provide the means for dog owners to clean up but realistically we know that most of them need prompting. All the bins have just about rusted away now so perhaps they might get replaced.

[woe10]

They sell little Doggie Poo Bags in Nort y Sur. People should use them.

[pescatore]

I've found that every vacant building plot of bit of unused ground close to an urban area is best avoided, I stick to the beaches....

[Sandy D]

Also watched last week as two young women walking a dog on the beach at El Cotillo stood and watched as it stopped and poo in the sand at the waterline, ok they did scoop it up in some sand afterwards but just wonder if that was because they noticed us watching them

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Half the dogs in the area you describe, leading up to Mercadona in Correlejo, aren't even 'walked' by their owners. They are let out on their own and take themselves off to do their business. Alternatively they are let out of a car, the owner drives off, and the dog chases after the car, doing it's business as it goes. Last week I saw a car driving round the area, with a big dog on a lead which the owner was holding through the window while he drove! I've seen this on bikes, but a car?? the poor dog nearly went under the wheels when the guy drove round a roundabout. It's an accident waiting to happen - his attention can't be properly on his driving. Why don't the guardia top up their coffers from fining this sort of behaviour and the ones that don't clear up after their dogs, rather than inventing traffic offences?
The locals look at me in disbelief when I clear up after my dog - picking up one little pile from amongst hundreds on the picon or building site does seem ludicrous, but I'm not going to add to the problem.

[waggy]

It's not just the dogs, of which there are formidable numbers, but also cats. The two together, crapping on the same urban patches of volcanic grit pose, by now, a risk to human health, given the number of dangerous faecally transmittable parasites that both carry.
When we were last over there in Feb (last Nov was almost as bad) the gravelly areas near human habitation were disgusting sh1tholes, especially the ones around cat feeding areas.
     You certainly wouldn't let children play in such a place because cat number two carries the Epstein-Barr virus that can mess up your immune system for life and the worst time to become infected is before the age of ten. Add to that the large variety of protozoan and gut-worm gut parasites that you can easily get from both cat and dog number two and you've a potentially huge health problem looming if it doesn't rain for a while and then when it does all of their eggs and encysted larvae hatch out, en masse.
Add to all of that all the dormant dog and cat flea larvae building up everywhere during a dry spell and then also hatching out and looking for a blood meal as soon as it rains and there's going to be some very itchy folk about.

So we're off to Ireland instead next September, Kerry or Cork, for some fishing and photography.  Any of you good Irish folk know of any good self-catering out there?

[swl]

Yuk, nuff said!

[waggy]

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=taxoplasmaplasma%20gondii&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FToxoplasma_gondii&ei=w-eiT776NYrT8gPuz-jpCA&usg=AFQjCNGSR9Kfn_9NQPtZ7Bc-zHPiDoEarg

Just one of the many delights in store for the unwary who tread on the grit.
In the UK 6-6% of people are infected with it. In the USA it's 12.3%; in Australia it's 28%; in Germany, 42.7%; in France 45% and in Brazil, a whopping 66.9%. It's a growing phenomenon due to higher cat ownership, leading to more feral cats.

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Waggy - Any stats for Spain or rather, Fuerte/Canaries re the toxoplasma thingy?

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

on a lighter note: http://www.heptune.com/poop.html
[]

[emmi]

[][] OMG - everything you ever needed to know about poop!![8D]

[waggy]

Tamara, pgs 7 and 8 give an easy overview and show the connections between cats, the primary host, and other animals subsequently infected after contact with them or their waste.
tp://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/scdocs/doc/583.pdf
The much vaunted El Caleton is a classic place to get quickly infected and I definitely would not take a child or a pregnant woman there - it's a filthhole. The so-called 'garden' consisting of gravel with good scratching post vegetation and the so-called 'cats' cafe' make it a Toxoplasmosis paradise. The cats are fed to repletion, stay around the accommodation area, number two and pee all over the place and don't, as a result, do any ratting.
The whole complex stinks of cat potty poo poo and tomcat p1ss and we nicknamed it El Catapong when we stayed there.
The rats live close by and probably feed from the cat feeding station too. They live in the rock fissures and, aftyer dark, scout around the stone sunning circles for bits of food waste that thoughtless folk leave there. If you know what you're looking for you can easily track rats around the area and see where they've visited.
I should say that anywhere with the cat feeding places and any gravel patches in urban areas are heavily infected with Toxop. and many other dog and cat borne larval parasites.

When we were in El Cotillo in Oct and Feb last every single patch of exposed gravel in the public places was heavily contaminated with pet number two.
As I've said elsewhere we're off to Ireland this year until FV has had a good long drenching of rain.

[waggy]

http://www.springerlink.com/content/74411v85kt230627/

They're taking some finding.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3109627/ If you follow it down about 4 paragraphs you'll see the link between cats and the sexual stage of the parasite.