With actor Jason Segel in Cambridge this week to be roasted as the Hasty Pudding’s 2012 Man of the Year, the time has come for a post on the subject of people who don’t pick up after their dogs.
So far as I know Segel himself is not a dog owner, unlike Claire Danes who was in town last week with her dog, a schnoodle named Wee Gee, to be paraded through Harvard Square as the Pudding’s Woman of the Year. But who can forget the scene in I Love You, Man, when Segel’s character (Sydney) refuses to clean up after his dog on the crowded Venice Beach boardwalk. Uber-dude Sydney blithely misinforms his saucer-eyed bro-tégé Peter (Paul Rudd), “Dog poop is like compost. It has a ton of nutrients that enrich the soil.” When a passerby calls him out, Sydney goes psycho and spews obscenities (warning: the video contains a few choice words).
Based on personal observation, I would say there are a fair number of Sydneys in Cambridge, which is surprising given the City’s progressive reputation. While most owners are scrupulous about picking up after their dogs, and some have even switched from using regular plastic bags to compostable BioBags, there are still too many holdouts.
So in the hope of convincing the Sydneys of the world (starting with those in my neighborhood!) to do the right thing, I’ll share a humorous music video PSA made by an environmental advocacy group working to clean up Puget Sound:
