White Dog Poop Was Real – Here’s Why It Vanished
Let's talk about dog poop. I know, it's not a pleasant subject, but I had a couple thoughts this weekend about dog poop and I wanted to see what you all think.
Saturday, while I was out and about, I saw lots of people out mowing their yards. A classic July weekend in Sioux Falls. Seeing people of all ages and backgrounds out doing this summer tradition brought back memories of mowing yards around my small Nebraska hometown when I was a kid. Then I saw online someone talking about white dog poop.
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Why We Used to See White Dog Poop
I had started to think I was going crazy. I'd swear that when I was a kid in the 80s and would be out mowing, one thing I always kept an eye out for was a pile of white dog poop.
Sidebar: I don't know if it was the town I lived in, but there is far less dog drooping just left out in the world today than when I was young. Sometime in 1993, all American dog owners collectively decided to pick up after their animal. And today, most of the time, you can enjoy a poop-free walk.
A Gross Childhood Memory Revisited
But, in 1987, lawns were sometimes a gauntlet of piles of fertilizer. And god forbid you miss one and run over it with the mower. Especially if it was fresh. The mower would get super gross underneath and flings pieces of the pile around the yard. I rather have my legs cut up by rocks than get splattered with Rover's lunch leftovers.
There was one lawn obstacle that I learned to avoid at all costs, the pile of white dog poop. back then it still came out brown-ish like today. But after a few days it would turn bone white. And if you run over it with the mower, you'd get an explosion of white poop dust all over you. It took me one time, to learned to never do that again. I'm gagging right now remembering it.
But in the 2020s, white dog poop is something I never see. Not in lawns or parks, on curbs or sidewalks. What's different? It can't just be that people pick up after Fido better nowadays, can it?
Internet to the rescue. So, I dove into the information to find out. Turns out I'm not crazy! At least in this instance. White dog poop IS a thing of the past. You don't see it anymore because it doesn't happen anymore.
Cleaner Streets, Better Food, Less Poop
The reason we don't see white dog poop anymore is because of what we feed our dogs now. In the early 1990s pet food companies and consumers moved away from dog food made with lower quality meat that often contained bone pieces.
https://hot1047.com/sioux-falls-by-the-numbers/
Where Did All the White Poop Go?
The motto, "The Dog Will Eat It," seemed to be the working theory for dog food production in the old days. If it wasn't good enough hot dogs, it was good enough for the puppies. That leftover meat with bone created a high calcium diet for some pooches at the time. If the puppy presents sat exposed to the elements for a bit all that would be left is the indigestible calcium-rich white bone powder.
Today, you could probably eat some dog food and not even notice what it is because the quality has improved so much. Not just on the high end. Most all dog foods now use better quality meat without bone bits.
As far as other colors of dog poop go, you'll have to talk to your vet about that.
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Gallery Credit: Rachel Cavanaugh