Why don't your neighbors pick up their dog’s poop?
It's Been a Minute
NPR
4.7 • 9.2K Ratings
🗓️ 1 June 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Spotting unidentified poop outside is an unfortunate and unavoidable part of being alive, but in some cities, there’s a scourge being left behind by some people’s four-legged friends. Manuela López-Restrepo, writer and producer at All Things Considered, couldn’t stop noticing it – and she wondered if it might be a sign of something deeper going on. Paired with dogs popping up in places they maybe shouldn’t be – she wondered: can dogs be a vector for anti-social behavior? And what would it look like for people – and their pets – to share space more harmoniously?
Manuela shares her reporting with Brittany and they get deeper into the story of the dookie.
(00:00) Genuinely, why do people leave dog poop on the street?
(02:59) Dog poop as a symbol of urban entitlement
(05:38) When dogs show up at restaurants
(07:27) How the pandemic created a 'dog's rights movement'
(10:58) Dogs, race, and surveillance
(18:13) Is dog poop a policy issue?
(26:32) Investing in cleanliness and a more compassionate public
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Brittany, I'm a complainer, and I know you're a complainer. |
| 0:05.7 | So this is a safe space to complain. |
| 0:07.9 | And I want to know, what is your least favorite part of living in a city? |
| 0:12.4 | Oh, my God. |
| 0:13.7 | Well, I'll say for one, summer is here, and not enough people are wearing deodorant in my neighborhood. |
| 0:20.4 | So that's a big one. |
| 0:22.5 | It's a, yeah, for sure, a problem in Bushwick. |
| 0:24.7 | But it's people making personal decisions that impact others around them, right? |
| 0:29.3 | And in a city, the radius of that impact is usually really close to somebody else. |
| 0:34.7 | Yes, yes. |
| 0:35.4 | Like the path from butterfly flapping their wings to tsunami is shorter for people who live in cities, right? |
| 0:43.3 | Totally. |
| 0:44.8 | For listeners who haven't met her yet, this is Manuela Lopez Restrepo, a writer and producer |
| 0:50.1 | at All Things Considered and friend of the show. |
| 0:53.1 | Okay, I got to complain. So, Manuela, it's your |
| 0:56.0 | turn now. What really gets your goat? Listen, there's plenty I can gripe about living in a dense |
| 1:01.3 | place like New York where not everybody loves thy neighbor. But this past winter, I hit a |
| 1:07.7 | critical mass with some critical mass, let's say. |
| 1:11.4 | Okay. What do you mean by that? |
| 1:13.6 | Brittany, we're talking dog turds. |
| 1:15.9 | Yes. |
| 1:17.2 | So unidentified poop is kind of a staple of living in the world, I would say. |
... |
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