An outbreak of stray dog poop in Destin, Florida has led a condo board to make an unusual request. They’d like the pet owners living at Harbor Landing to submit the DNA of their non-human dwelling mates for testing in a bid to eliminate their surprise poo epidemic.
Yes, the condominium homeowners association has asked residents with pets to register their animal companions with the association and submit the DNA of their pets for record keeping. The residents are also asked to pony up for the DNA and registration costs, although this initiative has been billed as “voluntary.” Here’s the key chunk of the letter residents received about this plan as obtained by the Panama City News Herald:
“We are not sure why the pet owners have not done the responsible thing and cleaned up after their pets, so the board is instituting a pet registration policy that will also include the need to obtain a DNA sample from the pet at the time of registration. The DNA sample will then be sent off to a lab for testing and recording. This will then allow for the Association to track down the owner of the pet waste and stop the problems.”
As you might expect, Harbor Landing residents aren’t exactly wild about the methods used by the condominium homeowners association to curb renegade poopers and the owners that don’t want to pick it up. One resident (who wanted to stay anonymous) says there are too many, uh, variables to police the dumps properly.
“I don’t see how they can do it and do it right, because we have a lot of visitors here and they bring dogs. Sometimes they have two or three (dogs) and sometimes they are big, sometimes they are little. Half of the time they don’t even know they (visiting dogs) are here.”
This Florida condo isn’t the only place bringing DNA into the equation for sorting out mystery pet poops. In 2014, we shared the story of a Kentucky ‘dog poop DNA matching service’ called PooPrints. We live in an exciting age.
(via Mashable)
