[nagdu] Condo owners want to test DNA of dog poo to track negligent owners

[Ginger Kutsch]

Condo owners want to test DNA of dog poo to track negligent
owners
By JILL ROSEN 
The Baltimore Sun
Updated: 05/19/2010 11:08:36 AM EDT
 

Robert Hopp and his Brussels Griffon dog, Sparky, stand outside
Scarlett Place condominiums in Baltimore on May 14. Hopp and
other residents will have to take DNA samples from their dogs
because unknown canine residents have been leaving feces in the
elevator and hallway. (BALTIMORE SUN - KIM HAIRSTON)BALTIMORE --
Someone of the canine persuasion has been leaving his business
all over the ritzy Scarlett Place condominium near Baltimore's
Inner Harbor. And the condo board says the only way to find the
culprit: mandated DNA tests for every dog in the building. 
"We pay all this money, and we're walking around stepping in dog
poop. We bring guests over and this is what they're greeted by.
It's embarrassing for me as a dog owner and as someone who lives
in this building," says Steve Frans, the board member who raised
the idea of hiring a lab to identify which of the dozens of dogs
in the luxury building is behind the droppings. 
 
"Some people think it's funny. But you know, this seems to be a
reasonable, objective way to say, 'This is your poop, you're
responsible.'" 
 
Under the proposal, every dog at Scarlett Place and guest dogs
would be swabbed for a DNA sample -- owners would then have to
pay $50 each to cover the test and supplies. Dog owners would
also pay an extra $10 per month per dog to cover the cost of
having the building's staff scoop poop and send it to a lab.
Feces, like saliva, contains tell-tale DNA. 
 
If the lab identifies your dog as the pooper, that's a $500 fine.

 
"It's absolutely ridiculous," says Richard Hopp, an attorney
who's lived in the building for four years with Sparky. "I feel
like I'm living in a 'Seinfeld' episode." 
 
The condo board will decide whether to go with the doggy DNA plan
after a hearing Wednesday evening. 
 
If they do, they will become one of the world's apparent leaders
in using a science that has convicted murderers and confirmed
paternity to pinpoint the source of wayward excrement. 
The Israeli city of Petah Tikva near Tel Aviv received some
attention in 2008 for setting up a similar sort of program. 
 
Scarlett Place is considering working with a Tennessee company
called BioPet Vet Lab that offers a service called PooPrints.
PooPrints is marketed specifically to neighborhoods and
homeowners associations plagued by dog droppings. BioPet
officials declined to return calls Friday, and it is unclear how
many community organizations, if any, are using the service. 
 
The proposal has the dog people of Scarlett Place muttering a lot
about "big brother" and draconian measures. 
 
"This is something you'd see in some kind of tyrannical nation
where you had no rights," says Peter Jaffe, who owns two pugs and
a poodle and has lived in the building for 13 years. "Our dogs
are like our children. If you had a child, would you want someone
coming in swabbing your child's mouth for DNA?" 
 
Frans says the situation has come to a head over the past year.
Dog excrement has been found in the elevators, in the long,
carpeted hallways, in the common areas. Well-heeled residents
have nearly stepped in it, and building employees not only have
to regularly hose down the elevators but must pull up and replace
stained carpet. 
 
"That's just crazy," says Frans, who is legally blind and is
assisted by Gerri, his guide dog. "To me, it's incomprehensible
that anyone who is a responsible pet owner would actually walk
away from pet messes." 
 
He swears Gerri has never been a violator, saying, "My dog has
never, ever, ever messed in the hall. Other people suspect me, I
know. They say, 'He's blind, he can't see, obviously his dog is
messing.' But he's not, and the DNA would prove it. To me, this
would almost be like vindication." 
 
Building manager Rita Shriver isn't thrilled with a solution
where she'd have to pick up dog poop and then mail it. She agrees
that the building has a problem, and a disgusting one at that,
but she's not sure doggy DNA, which she first thought was a joke,
is the answer. 
 
"How has it got to this point where we have to have a CSI thing
going on?" she says. "This is just insane." 
 
Some residents have suggested installing cameras to keep an eye
on dogs, but Frans, who doesn't understand his neighbors'
resistance to DNA testing, says video documentation would be more
expensive, more time-consuming and "more draconian and more like
a police state." 
 
Board vice president Betty Iwancio has lived in the building 20
years. She doesn't have a dog and supports the DNA plan. 
 
She suspects renters are to blame for what she calls the "piles
of feces" accumulating around her home. 
 
"It's annoying," she says. "You spend a lot of money for a place
that's very nice. You're on the water, it's beautiful, yet you
have people that don't care about property. They just don't care,
and we got fed up." 
 
Hopp suspects that if push comes to shove and Scarlett Place
enacts the doggy DNA plan, some folks will attempt to circumvent
the system. Perhaps someone will borrow a trick from drug
offenders stuck with urine screenings and offer phony dog saliva
for the DNA database. 
 
"Our neighbors in Little Italy could rent out their dogs for DNA
samples so ours will never be fingered for the poo," he says,
laughing. 
 
He also thinks that if someone wanted revenge on a resident dog
person -- really wanted it -- they could retrieve a dirty deed
from a garbage can, drop it in the hallway and sit back and wait
for the person to get fined. 
 
"Maybe you can identify the poop, but you can't prove how it got
there," the attorney says with a wink. "It could have come in on
someone's shoe." 
 
Source:
http://www.ydr.com/ci_15116863?source=most_emailed