Pick Up Your Trash!!

We live in an old, quaint neighborhood called Observatory Park. It is a nice mix of the old and the new and a place where there are lots of families and people tend to take care of their houses. Every weekend you will most likely see kids playing in the park, people walking their dogs and home owners sprucing up their property by planting, mowing and raking. It is also a bit of a scholarly neighborhood housing several professors, grad students and a scattering of undergrad students. We live four blocks from University of Denver and three blocks from sorority row. I often see various students walking to class while I am walking Roxy. This proximity to DU is one of the charming characteristics to this neighborhood, but also may be one of its flaws.

Every day when I walk Roxy we constantly practice our "Leave It" and "Drop It" commands. With these commands she is supposed to either leave whatever it is she is sniffing around and attempting to pick up or drop whatever she has picked up that I don't want her to take with us. In her puppyhood this is generally paper trash of any kind (napkins, papers, straw wrapers, etc.) In addition, she enjoys licking empty cans, bottles and those lovely red solo cups that come across our path. What I want to know is, why can't people throw away their own trash?!?!

I'm not blaming the college kids for the litter but I don't imagine it's my neighbor who is littering while walking their own dog or taking a Sunday stroll. Please don't get the impression that we live in litter infested streets - it is mostly close to the sorority houses or the park and generally the trash is on the parkway (the area between the sidewalk and the street). But, I just don't understand. There are several trash cans in the park in addition to dumpsters in each and every alley. If you really can't wait to get home to shed your Sobe bottle, couldn't you walk three steps to the side and put your bottle in a trash can?

For the first four months of walking Roxy I have been ignoring this issue. However, as we cross the same pieces of trash every morning, and I constantly have to tell her to "Leave It" or "Drop It", I have decided that maybe I should just pick it up and dispose of it myself. When we walk I now have two plastic baggies; one to pick up after Roxy and one to pick up after everyone else.