Pooped out: Dealing with an indifferent municipal veterinary service

Journalists and pet dogs have a lot in common. Good reporters are always on the lookout for news and seek to leave their mark on the world. Dogs, especially smaller ones close to the ground, insist on smelling everything – every pole, corner of buildings, and bush – to find out which other dogs were there, their age, and even gender – and leave drops of urine there to mark their territory to say, “I was here!”

After all, dogs possess up to 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses compared to only six million in humans, and the part of a canine’s brain that is devoted to analyzing smells is about 40 times larger than ours.

So it’s natural that this veteran journalist – The Jerusalem Post’s health and science reporter – has a three-year-old, five-kilo, heterochromatic (one blue and one brown eye) shi-tzu dog named Sheleg who enjoys collecting the “news,” walking and even running together for an hour early every morning in our Yefe Nof/Beit Hakerem neighborhood. As Sheleg apparently has keen vision and watches nature movies on TV for an hour at a time, she can see other dogs and poles to smell from far away.

The only problem is that a minority of residents in the neighborhood – comprising Beit Hakerem, Ramat Beit Hakerem, Givat Beit Hakerem, and Yefe Nof – own about 900 registered dogs out of 15,000 in the whole city. And they generally don’t bother to clean up after their dogs have pooped. 

They either forget to bring a plastic bag, are lazy, have pains in their knees, or are just mad at the world. But as a result, the sidewalks are full of poop, some of it hidden within the weeds around trees and at the edges of sidewalks that the municipality neglects to remove. 

Those walking in the neighborhood who have pets or are dog-less don’t look straight ahead when making their way. Instead, they look downward to avoid stepping in feces, but even that is quite useless. Since there is a lot of pedestrian traffic in the area, many people end up taking the filth home with them on their shoes. 

Two months ago, Sheleg – who had never been sick – suddenly started vomiting violently and had only watery brown diarrhea, waking in the middle of the night, soiled and crying. She refused to eat anything for more than five days and barely drank. 

Her devoted vet examined a specimen under the microscope and announced that she had a serious gastrointestinal bacterial infection from getting close to poop. He prescribed antibiotics and special food for her stomach (at a cost of NIS 460 – but she refused to eat any of it, and her mouth couldn’t even be pried open by several people at once). 

In desperation, only when I tried a tip by a dog psychologist on YouTube to stare directly into her face and make believe I was crying, pointing to the food and a pulverized pill glued to a treat with peanut butter, did she deign to eat it because she was concerned for me. In a few days, she was back to normal. I never thought I would be so overjoyed to see normal poop.

But, journalist that I am, I designed a plan for the city’s veterinary service to educate dog owners to clean up after their animals and improve its enforcement of the law prohibiting the leaving of poop in public places. I personally have never seen an inspector from the service in three years of walking my dog.

Getting veterinary care

FIRST, I emailed the municipal spokesman’s office, telling those on the other end the whole sad story and asking to interview the chief veterinarian. I was told that he “doesn’t give interviews,” and they even declined to give me his name, which doesn’t appear anywhere on the city’s or the veterinary service’s websites. 

After pestering them, they finally told me that he is Dr. Asaf Brill and reluctantly agreed that I could talk to him but that I “would not be permitted to interview or quote him.”

Brill, a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has a bachelor’s degree in biology and a master’s degree in microbiology, both with honors, and a doctorate in veterinary medicine. But he has something to learn about serving the public who pays his salary. 

I reluctantly agreed, and in half an hour made my suggestions. He even gave me his email address and cellphone number, and several times I sent him photos of fresh feces that my dog and I encountered. 

I suggested that the Veterinary Service prominently warn on its website that those failing to pick up their dog’s feces would be fined if caught by an inspector; that Shvavim, the organization that collects annual dog license fees, should announce the warning about health dangers to dogs, children, and passersby; that the boxes set up by the city in small dog parks to supply plastic bags – which have been empty for years – be filled regularly; and that inspectors be on patrol in neighborhoods with many canines at the peak walking hours of 7 to 8 a.m. and in the afternoons.

I was told by the spokesman that these ideas, except for more inspectors, didn’t fall within the responsibility of the Veterinary Service. When I asked why the relevant department heads couldn’t get together to find a solution, and inquired how many fines for leaving poop have been handed out, I received no answer.

In addition, the service’s website claims that Jerusalemites can call a human there (only) on Sundays through Thursdays between 11 a.m. and noon and on computer chats. However, I called the number many times, but no one answered; ditto for my chats. 

IN A previous encounter with the Veterinary Service, I saw a Canaani dog constantly “walking himself” for kilometers in the neighborhood – and almost getting run over twice on Herzl Boulevard – because his owner was lazy. I learned then that the service has only three veterinary teams for the whole city.

The next day, when I called the Jerusalem Municipality’s 106 phone number to complain, I was told that “the problem has been dealt with.” But when I dialed 106 again, the city representative admitted that the dog was never caught, but said, “We tried.” 

By comparison, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in the UK has 76 dedicated inspectors who don’t have to catch lawbreakers who leave poop behind. The inspectors actively look for abused dogs in yards and even inside homes, calling the police and getting a court order to confiscate the animals, take them to a vet, and train the animals to be suited for a “forever home.”

The Veterinary Service only became interested when I mentioned that I was a “newspaper reporter,” but they claimed they couldn’t find the dog. So I walked through the neighborhood for a week and located the dog in front of the building where prime minister Menachem Begin had lived. The Veterinary Service finally found the animal and warned the owner not to let him wander alone again. 

Now, after complaining to the municipal spokesman about the filth and the neighborhood’s general neglect, I saw that suddenly things markedly improved on the sidewalks. The cleaners even swept the enclosures surrounding the green garbage bins, most of which have no tops to keep out cats and other creatures. But I know that the status quo ante will quickly return.

In the meantime, I wash Sheleg’s face and legs with shampoo after every walk. It won’t necessarily prevent another gastrointestinal infection, but I can hope that somehow the city’s services, for which we pay plenty of municipal taxes, will improve.■