canary in a coal mine...

shih-tzu in a storm drain...
I've always maintained that cats are smarter than dogs..hell, a fly is smarter than a dog, but now I got the proof positive I've been seeking in a dog named Sable. You see, Sable has been trained by her sadistic owners to sniff sewage for a living. The idea is to use Sable to detect the presence of human waste in storm drains and channels...the City Creeks dept wants to use her skills to confirm the presence or absence of people doodoo in the areas around Laguna Channel...well, duh, the creek is used by people all the time..just drive past the work line and notice all the folks there, the day labor line..there's a few port-a-potties and it's a known homeless campout..where else are they gonna go?? Plus, campers dump in storm drains at night...the source is right in front of creek gal Jill's eyes! Why does she need a dog to tell her what is obvious? and dogs spend most of their lives sniffing asses anyway so now they are connoisseurs?? It's one thing to have sewage overflowing from a manhole into a creek or storm drain, but absent such a scenerio, any waste found has been deposited by individual action and needs to be addressed by enforcing the laws..you can't take a dump in the creeks!! so clean up the junk around the creek/channels and problem solved. but remember, all kinds of wild animals use the creeks upstream..birds, bears, skunks, possum, coyotes..there is no such thing as a pure water creek but nature provides the means to clean the creeks to acceptable levels with sedimentation, aeration, microbial action and sunlight... if people keep dumping fertilizers, pesticides and shopping carts in our creeks, maybe we should breed illegal aliens to sniff out those pollutants!!
Now, dogs are the last species to prevent water pollution. They are a major hazard to beaches...harassing marine mammals and crapping on the shoreline...for some reason, dogs have become more important than law-abiding citizens like me. They can run off leash, bite people, and violate the Marine Mammal Protection Act with impunity! I don't blame the dogs as much as their stupid-ass owners who feed the poor things rich gourmet food, keep them cooped up all day, spoil them then take them to the beach to crap..see, the beach is the dog's toilet...just ask Summerlanders who are knee deep in dogshit "landmines" at the once beautiful Summerland Beach...even Hillary Hauser of Heal the Ocean is slightly concerned...she once claimed that dogs were not an issue in ocean pollution until her neighborhood beach at Lookout Park started to stink....she's trying to get more plastic bag stations at area beaches...still, you can't force people to use them and many won't..others have suggested banning domestic dogs from the beaches all together...wild dogs like coyotes are ok as they have better diets and don't make a mess...it's true!
if we could move the domestic pampered lapdogs from the beach to the storm drains, I'd support that....so I won't condemn Sable...all I ask is that she lead her pack someplace where the sun don't shine....