The Downtown LA Dog Problem

From left to right: Vince, Pablo, and Jipsy on Christiano’s lap.

First I want to start by saying that I love dogs and I have a dog. It’s the handsome one on the Left on the picture above (Vince).

Now we do have a dog problem Downtown and the main problem its not the dogs, but the owners.

What is causing the problem:

1. Unlike in a neighborhood with houses Downtown is very dense. In a normal neighborhood, you could have maybe 20 to 30 houses the most, and based on an article from the Washington Post 68% of Americans have pets and most of them are dogs. Taking that into consideration would be safe to say that each block has around 18 dogs or more. Now in a block Downtown where you can have 3 to 5 buildings with 150 to 300 units each that would amount to more than 300 dogs per block. You can see how that could be a problem.
   
   
2. There are not many grassy areas in Downtown as you have on the neighborhoods that have houses, so there are no sprinklers to that water the grass and wash dog waste. On top of that, it rarely rains in Los Angeles unlike a city like New York where even though is dense there is some natural washing happening, so the waste is sitting there until someone physically washes and a lot of times that can take some time.

3. The owners have no manners. I have seen people not picking up poo, sometimes because they think no one is watching or sometimes because they are distracted on their phones, not paying attention at all to whats going on. I have seen people letting dogs pee on anything from a building, to a sign to a car. How can you let your dog pee on a building? I understand there are not many trees, but at least make an effort. I have seen people letting their dogs pee right next to my office door and not even blink.What are the solutions?

   That’s a hard one, people are going to have dogs regardless, so I think we need to implement laws and enforce them and at the same time create some dog designated areas, so people have options.
   We all have to share Downtown and we want property values to go up and its no going to happen if we can smell pee everywhere we go. 

   I also want to praise the city in power washing the streets and sidewalks often and cleaning posts with soap, yes I have seen. The bid in South park is great and they will come at a moment’s notice and power wash in front of my office if I call them at no charge. They are truly great.

   I hope we can all do better and improve where we live.