As a former marketing/ad guy I agree with Frank that creating social unacceptability could change dog owner behavior. Anti-smoking campaigners figured out how to apply this approach to teens in the U.S. in the late 90s with good success (although gains have leveled off since the campaigns let up).

See also how marketing techniques were used in Ghana to create the habit of washing hands with soap.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/business/13habit.html?ex=1373601600&en=e3072a7b2bc8ebf4&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Sidenote, have you seen the people in Recoleta who manage to bag their dog’s poo as it’s being extruded? What timing!

Looking forward to your article on trust, morality & economic growth in Arg…

Good point about education. I’m referring not to an Arts & Letters type of schooling but rather some kind of inculcation of moral priorities. Porteños often think cynically, not civically and I am about to address this in an upcoming post about trust, morality and economic growth in Argentina. I’m not quite sure how to address this poop problem from the perspective of public policy, but imagine if Argentina’s president talked about the problem.

I know, this won’t happen, and the mere idea sounds preposterous. But perhaps it could do some good. Bill Clinton was accused by many of thinking small and of focusing on issues that seemed, to some, to be trivial, such as school uniforms. But his focus on these seemingly small issues paid off in many unforeseen ways. I don’t have time to highlight these here, but the poop problem is certainly not one that is intractable. It’s a real problem, but solving it should not be very difficult. And the easier a problem is to solve, the more ridiculous we become when we fail to address it.

Taos

A key issue is that the worst offenders are the maids/nannies that take their owner’s dogs out to do their business.

The hired help spends all day picking up after the family’s kids, the last thing they are going to do is pick up after the family’s dog.

An education campaign might fall on deaf ears with that group.

Ok, perhaps this is a bit farfetched. But I do have to disagree with those who say education is the solution. Middle and upper class Argentines, particularly portenos love to explain how their county’s problems are mostly due to the number of poor and the masses of ignorant, who are easy prey for political caudillos. THis dogshit issue is a perfect example of how this argument is mostly rubbish. The problem is often not with the poor and ignorant – one of the main problems in Argentina is that the educated who should know better and often do know better, simply do not give a shit (pardon the pun)about anything, especially the topic at hand. That’s why “no importa” is such a commonly used phrase, about anything. You will find much cleaner streets in Villa Lugano and Villa Soldati than you will near my apartment in Belgrano, where the so-called “enlightened” live.

Maybe if carnercias in BA took the initiative to start closing down due to risk of the bacterial infections you mentioned, contaminating their meat, that would be close to as effective as a farmers strike. and people would be forced to change their behavior.

Excellent points. An education campaign truly is needed. Without it, nobody would likely even use any kind of poop scoopers. Opprobrium is also crucial. If this kind of behavior is absolutely shunned and frowned up, then we’ve got a good start.

Best wishes to you both.

Cheers,
Taos

We all inherently want to be liked. If not cleaning up after your dog was to be seen in the same light as picking your nose in public, people might start feeling ashamed of just leaving their dog´s excrement.

Whenever I have seen people walking their dogs with their plastic bags in hand I have congratulated them. Most people are very tired of seeing their sidewalks littered this way.

Thanks for heads up on that blog related to the subject. What a great idea!

We all inherently want to be liked. If not cleaning up after your dog was to be seen in the same light as picking your nose in public, people might start feeling ashamed of just leaving their dog´s excrement.

Whenever I have seen people walking their dogs with their plastic bags in hand I have congratulated them. Most people are very tired of seeing their sidewalks littered this way.

Thanks for heads up on that blog related to the subject. What a great idea!