If you hike the trails of Wishahickon Valley Park or even just walk a bit on Forbidden Drive, you may have noticed this delightfully tied little package delicately deposited on the edge of the path.
Or maybe you noticed this artistically presented package >> 
Or possibly you admired some of fantastic multi-piece compositions such as the ones on the left.
At least I hope you noticed those delightfully composed packages as I am wondering whether I am the only one noticing??
These delicately composed packages are dog poops care packages kindly deposited by some of the humans who bring their canine companions for a walk in the park.
Please notice …
the care in tieing the package with a bow,
Notice the effort the dog owner took to delicately pickup the excrements of his/her animal, wrap those pieces of dog poop inside a plastic bag, tie an elegant knot AND LEAVE THE RESULTING PACKAGE TO THE CARE OF WHOM???????????????????????
Your chambermaid resigned in 1776 – nobody is going to pickup your dog’s crap for another 3 months at least – if ever.
What these incredibly well intentioned denizens of the City of Brotherly Love do not seem to comprehend is that wrapping the crap of their beloved animal in plastic and leaving it sitting there is anything but considerate. It is actually hundreds of times worse for the environment of the park than if they just had left their dog poop sit to dry in the open air.
Why? Because in a plastic wrapping the feces of their beloved canine companion take much much longer to decompose – they just sit there and sit there for weeks on end until either the whole repulsive package gets washed away in the Wishahickon river – which exactly what you do not want.
To top things off, the god damned plastic bag that the considerate and clueless animal owners are leaving will break into piece but NOT DEGRADE for hundreds of years because they are not biodegradable. From my point of view, this is adding insult to injury.
There will eventually be a crew of courageous volunteers from the Friends of the Wissahickon Park who may clean up the particular areas where the crappy care packages were deposited weeks and months before.
So, if you take your animal to run or walk on the Wishahickon trails and you carefully pickup its crap, PLEASE do not leave those packages of crap right there on the side of the trail. Please wake up from you dreaming bubble and complete the transaction by making sure that your delicate crap package finds its way to a trash can. That might mean that you need to take it home with you in the trunk of your car.
A simple solution would be that dog owners start using bio-degradable poop-bags, such thing exist, see the post “Bio-degradable Dog Poop-Bag” for more details. Of course, the city could mandate the use of biodegradable poop-bags or better impose fines on people not using bio-degradable poop-bags. No worries, that will not happen any time soon. We will need to reach a crisis before residents or the city administration start thinking in these terms.
