A woman took on the task of clearing dozens of dog poos from a field after being disgusted by the unpleasant brown mounds amassing in her local park.
Despite it being an offence to leave your dog’s faeces after it’s departed them, June Craig managed to find and pick up more than 30 this afternoon.
It was after wandering around Levi’s Park in Chippenham with her own dog, a terrier, she decided to take action and deal with the revolting issue herself.
Unscrupulous individuals unknowingly forced the clean-up task on the kind, community-spirited 58-year-old Norwegian – described as a “true warrior” by her husband Michael – who was concerned for the health of children using the field to play football.
June, who normally litter picks with others in the local area, said previously working on a farm meant she wasn’t fussed about picking up the poo.
“Because it’s cold, I decided to go out and pick it up whilst it was frozen”, she said.
Continuing: “I usually pick up normal litter, but I have picked up poo when I see there’s lots of it. As I dog owner myself, I find it horrible that the park is so full of dog poo.
“Most of the poo I’ve found is from big dogs. I’d rather pick it up than step on it. And those of us that have dogs are used to this work; you can use gloves like I do.
“I have a view of the world… instead of being angry with people not doing their part, I can go out there and do it myself and I can do it with joy. I know it will make other people happy and it makes me happy knowing I’ve done my bit to make the area nicer.
“I think leaving your dog’s poo is irresponsible. We live in a country with a lot of dogs – in the same way you have to feed it and walk it, you have to clean up after it. If nobody cleaned up, it would be much worse than this. Luckily, I think most people do.
“If I had younger children, I would not encourage them to come down here to play without clearing up the dog poo first. It’s basically a run for dogs.
“I would encourage people to do what I do. You do something for the community, you do something for yourself. It’s important to be out in fresh air, especially during the lockdown. But whilst you’re outside you could take some bags and see the task as exercise.”
