her very large (very filthy!) spanner into the works – these procedures were generally held to be not only just, but successful, necessary and universally beneficial.
With the arrival of TP, however, this fragile consensus was attacked, savagely mauled and rent asunder.38 TP, as you may well know, owns four large German shepherds and prefers – rather eccentrically – to take them on long walks on the moor in the moonlight (I say ‘them’, although so far as I am aware she only ever walks one dog at any given time39). These four large dogs are usually kept confined inside a concrete ‘compound’40 in the back garden of Hursley End – her dilapidated bungalow on Lamb’s Green.
It was initially – she insists – due to the difficulties she experienced in negotiating/avoiding random dog faeces during these night-time hikes that her bizarre habit of bagging other people’s dogs’ faeces and leaving them deposited on branches, walls and fence posts – apparently as a warning/admonishment to others less responsible than herself – commenced.41 This activity continued for upwards of six months before anyone either commented on it publicly or felt the urge to root out/apprehend the strange individual in our midst who had inexplicably chosen to enact this ‘special service’ on our behalf.42
Given the idiosyncratic nature of the bags employed (TP prefers a small, pink-tinged, transparent bag43 – probably better adapted for household use, i.e. freezing meat44 – instead of the usual, custom-made, matt-black kind45) it was easy, from very early on, to understand that the person bagging up and ‘displaying’ these faeces was not only happy, but almost keen to leave some kind of ‘signature’ behind.
When the bags were eventually identified as belonging to none other than TP (and she was calmly – very sensitively – confronted with her crimes), rather than apologizing, quietly retreating, or putting a summary halt to her bizarre activities, she responded – somewhat perversely – by actively redoubling her poop-gathering efforts! In fact she went still one stage further! She began to present herself in public46 as a wronged party, as a necessary – if chronically undervalued – environmental watchdog, as a doughty, cruelly misunderstood moral crusader, standing alone and defenceless – clutching her trademark, transparent poo-bag to her heaving chest – against the freely defecating heathen marauder!
And it gets worse! She then went on the offensive (see Docs. 3+4 – copies of letters sent to the local press), angrily accusing the general body of responsible dog owners in Burley Cross of actively destroying the picturesque and historic moor by encouraging our animals to ‘evacuate’47 there.
One occasion, in particular, stands out in my mind. I met her – quite by chance – on a sunny afternoon, overburdened by shopping from the village store48. I offered to take her bags for her and during the walk back to her home took some pains to explain to her that there was no actual legal requirement for dog owners to collect their dog’s faeces from the surrounding farm and moorland (The Dogs Fouling of Land Act, 1996). Her reaction to this news was to blush to the roots of her hair, spit out the word ‘justifier!’, roughly snatch her bags from me49 and then quote, at length, like a thing possessed (as if reciting some ancient biblical proverb50) from the (aforementioned) EnCams publication on the subject.51
To return to this useful document for just a moment, in Dog Fouling and the Law, EnCams provide an invaluable ‘profile of a dog fouler’ (p. 4 – when you read it for yourself you will discover that it is an extremely thorough and thought-provoking piece of analysis). Apparently the average ‘fouler’ enjoys watching TV and attending the cinema but has a profound mistrust of soap opera, around half of them have internet access – mainly at home – but ‘are not particularly confident in its usage’, and they are most likely to read the Sun and Mirror (but very rarely the Daily Mail or the Financial Times).52
EnCams have invented their own broad label to describe these irresponsible individuals: they call them ‘justifiers’, i.e. they justify their behaviour on the grounds of a) Ignorance (‘I didn’t realize it was a problem…’ ‘But nobody has ever mentioned this to me before etc.) and b) Laziness (‘But nobody else ever picks it up, so why should I?’).
EnCams insist that these ‘justifiers’ will only ever openly admit that they allow their dog to foul in public when placed under extreme duress. Their fundamental instinct is to simply pretend it hasn’t happened or to lie about it.
Although I cannot deny that this profile is both interesting and – I don’t doubt – perfectly valid in many – if not most – instances, TP was nevertheless entirely wrong to try and label me – of all people – with this wildly inappropriate nomenclature: I am neither ignorant, lazy nor in denial. Quite the opposite, in fact. I am informed, proactive and socially aware. And although I do dislike soaps,53 I very rarely go to the cinema,54 and my computer skills are – as this letter itself, I hope, will attest – universally acknowledged to be tip-top.
Since my acquisition of the EnCams document I have tried – countless times – to explain to TP (see Doc. 5 + Doc. 6: some valuable examples of our early correspondence) that not only am I a keen advocate of poop-scooping in residential areas and public parks, but that it shows absolutely no moral or intellectual inconsistency on my part to hold that allowing excrement to decompose naturally on the moor is infinitely more environmental than bagging it up and adding it, quite unthinkingly, to this small island’s already chronically over-extended quantities of landfill. I have also told her that by simply bagging up the faeces she finds and then dumping them, willy-nilly, she is only serving to exacerbate the ‘problem’55 because the excrement cannot be expected to decompose inside its plastic skin. Rather than helping matters she is actually making them infinitely worse – once bagged, the excrement is there forever: a tawdry bauble – a permanent, sordid testament to the involuntary act of physical evacuation!
As you will no doubt be aware, around two months ago Wharfedale’s dog warden – the ‘criminally over-subscribed’56 Trevor Horsmith – was persuaded57 to start to take an interest in the problems being generated by TP’s activities on the moor. It will probably strike you as intensely ironic that TP herself was one of the main instigators in finally involving Trevor in this little local ‘mess’ of ours.58
After familiarizing himself with the consequences of TP’s ‘work’ (on the moor and beyond59) Horsmith announced (I’m paraphrasing here60) that while he fully condoned – even admired!61 – TP’s desire
